Old Cars and Photographs - Part One

Speaking of old cars of mine and favorite old photographs, here’s something that incorporates both...

One rainy night, back in October of the year 2000, I took a picture of  Jake standing in front of our old Subaru station wagon. That car, probably more than any of my other cars, had been through a lot- most of it was good, some of it- well, not quite so good. 

On the positive front, it was one of the cars that the kids grew up with. We ran many of our weekend errands in that car. Back then, the weekend errands included not only going to the grocery store and swinging by the college, but it also included going to the Post Office (because I still had a post office box back then,) to the Outlet Store (where they sold food which was approaching the borderline of it's expiration date, and a lot of it that was beyond,) the videotape rental store (back in the day when there was such a thing,) and to the mall (back when I bothered to go.)

Back then, I was still working at what we refer to as my, “Old Work,” -  where, as it turns out, I would only be for a little while longer. The thing about my old work was that we worked longer days, but instead of working five days, we only worked four (having nearly every Friday off). This meant that every weekend was a longer weekend, which meant spending more time with the kids.

Sure, the kids were in school most of those Fridays, but the school day was shorter than a work day, so it meant that I got to drop them off and pick them up from school on those nearly every Fridays. And it meant doing things together in the afternoons and early evenings. And on their vacations, it was an extra day for us to spend together - running those errands that I mentioned, and more. A lot of time was spent together in that car.

While all of this was going on, my “old work” was dying a slow, painful death. And for this story it matters, because it leads into this poor old car’s rougher days ahead.