Goodbye Little Buggy

 Annamaria on Monday

I was a scholarship student at the College of St. Elizabeth, a women’s school. Generally speaking, my fellow students were from well-to-do families. Among the many rules we had follow was one that forbade resident students from keeping a car on campus until we were seniors, just about to graduate. At which point, some of the graduates were given gifts of cars by their fathers.  One of them, the year I was a freshman, received a little, green Austin Healey roadster. Perhaps it’s my Italian genes, but I have always been interested in interesting cars. I wanted that car so badly. 

My circumstances dictated a life steeped in practicality.  There was no room in my future for such a toy. So, when I was ready to have a car of my own, I always had to make down-to-earth choices. As time went on, the selection became somewhat fancy, but still not toys.

Fast forward.

In 2001, My daughter was pregnant with her second child, and our family car was a SAB station wagon that held five of us - just enough room for four adults and a child in a car seat.  (We were all New Yorkers and so having one car in the family was already more than in  80% of the typical NY households.)

“When the new baby comes, we will have to do some thing about the car,” I said to David, my husband. “We will need two car seats.  We won’t have room in the station wagon for six of us.”

David thought for a few seconds and said, “We’ll give the station wagon to the kids, and we’ll get another car for us. Something practical.

I spoke from my heart. “I have another idea.”

This is how we came to buy my dream car.

For my next birthday, David gave me this:

And so, for the past 20 years, for me driving has been like dancing! I can’t imagine driving, which I have always loved to do, could be more fun in any other vehicle.

I have loved being a little old lady in a hot car. I have loved the fact that every time, just about, that I got out of the car in any parking lot anywhere, people came over to me and said, “I love your car.“

“I love it too“ was the only possible answer.

But for years now, I have known that keeping that car was financially ridiculous. In Manhattan, garages don’t charge you to park your car. They hold the car for ransom. And less and less and less have I had any need for a car of my own. In fact, my 22 year old car has less than 101,000 miles on it. And only about 1500 of them are from the last three years.

I was still arguing with myself about whether I should keep the car when, last June, my eye doctor told me that I need to wear glasses when I drive. I got a prescription and bought the glasses. When I next drove the car with glasses on I couldn’t get comfortable doing so.  The glasses gave me a headache; my peripheral vision wasn’t the same. In short, it wasn’t any fun.

For a while, I had been toying with the idea of donating the car to my favorite charity, Hudson Valley Shakespeare. (For those of you outside the USA: it is a common custom here for people to donate unwanted cars to charities) In this case, I decided to donate my little buggy to be auctioned off at the annual fundraising gala to take place October 8.

And it sold for a great price. 

So my goodbye to my little buggy came with dear people around me and happiness that it earned needed funds for a company of players that has brought me joy for most of my adult life and will continue to do so for all my future.