It was two years ago last September, and I was driving my sa-weet 1986 Celica down the road when all of the sudden, the wheels fell off.Okay, maybe that's a bit of exaggeration, but what did happen is the passenger-side front tire disconnected from the suspension and turned perpendicular (i.e. 90 degrees) to the rest of the car, causing a slightly abrupt halt.
It was then I realized that the ol' Celi had driven its last. I mean, Casey and I had already combined to drive the first engine to a dramatic death--throwing a piston through the engine block never really is a good thing--but this time, the wheel came off, so it was officially an ex-vehicle.
Little did I know in that September, though, that I was soon to meet a friend who came to me via my Uncle Manny and my Grandpa Hobbs. That friend was a 1989 (yes, three years newer!) BMW 325I, a.k.a. the Ultimate Driving Machine, a.k.a. Miss Bimmer.
And she served me well during our friendship. She was there on just about all of the dates that Janelle and I ever went on. She was there in the great Cheese Wheel Fiasco of 2007. She was there on countless trips up North, including the last two to see Katherine Noel Hobbs. She was there when I proposed to my beautiful bride in January 2008, and she was there June 7, 2008, when she drove us from our pastor's house (we used his Mustang convertible to leave the reception) to the airport hotel.
Unfortunately, she was also there last Friday night (Feb. 6, 2009, a date that will live in infamy), when we hit a patch of black ice and spun a nifty 180, kissing a guard rail before we high-centered on a curb clear on the other side of the road.
We're both highly uninjuried (as you may have guessed by the tone of this post), but the Ultimate Driving Machine, she's another story. We had her towed to the good people at MidValley Auto Repair in Frazier Park, CA, and there she stays, pining for the days of confident freeway exceleration while her body parts are harvested and sold to the highest bidder.
So, I end with a poem, and ode to a car that was so "berry berry good to me":
Ode to Miss Bimmer, you drove us so far,
Everyone knew you were the very best car.
You drove and you drove, till you hit the black ice,
The rail and the curb, they weren't very nice.
