Strange what sticks in one’s mind over time…
One summer, back in the days when one still had pen-friends and the highlight of the day was to check the mailbox for letters from your holidaying friends, back in those days…
One summer we had, in addition to the old, big station wagon dad needed for work, an even older, beaten up black PV. I’m guessing somebody gave it to dad because the cost of the repairs needed was better put towards buying another car. He however patched it up, put some 3rd party insurance on it and for that summer it was our ”cheap little run-around”, despite guzzling just as much (if not more) petrol, I suspect. It didn’t go very fast or very far. It took dad to work, my brother to football practice, and carried the weekly foodshop.
It was noisy to drive, had no radio, back doors or anything. There was no ventilation bar the small tilt-able windows. When the sun shone it was hotter than hell and the usual stink of petrol and oil gave me an instant headache of the kind that made me see flickering lights, feel motion-sick and nauseous before turning on the engine. The old cracked plastic vinyl seats were not only hard and uncomfortable but would scald your legs if not careful. The scratchy blanket used to cover up the mess was forever sliding all over the place, sooner or later ending up on the far from clean floor…
Ever so often there were spiders to be evicted first too. Not by me. I was the only one in the family shit-scarred by them and thus got precious little sympathy from the others.
Somehow though, that old banger has stuck in my mind. It was a very embarrassing ride at times, especially with its slamming doors and stuck seat-belts. Yet defiant in it’s old, outdated and out-modelled state and far from shiny exterior. It felt freer and more adventurous than any other car we ever had in an “I defy you…” stick it’s battered chin – or chrome bumper – out sort of way.
I don’t remember what happened to it, but its memory keeps cropping up ever so often lately. Strange that.
Old black PV, photo from the www.
Catpaws Cafe 