Post by Mike B on Dec 20, 2008 11:44:17 GMT -4
‘Aunt Fern’ is not pretty, but so very functional
My Favorite Ride: by Laura Lane H-T columnist | lane@heraldt.com
January 27, 2008
When I refer to my personal vehicle in this column, I don’t often say anything nice. It’s a 10-year-old minivan, for goodness sake, with 137,408 miles on the odometer and a smashed driver’s-side front end.
(The damage was not my fault. Really. I was driving to French Lick one evening for work during tornadolike conditions when an uprooted tree flew into the road and into my front corner panel. I felt lucky at the angle; a few feet higher and I might have been impaled. I never got around to reporting it to my insurance company, and consider the crumpled metal and cracked headlight a graphic representation of the dangers of my job.)
“Aunt Fern,” parked in the driveway. She’s not pretty — notice the front-end damage — but is quite functional. Laura Lane | Hoosier Times
Last week, in admiring Herb Terry’s giant Cadillac, I lamented my van’s ability to maintain any sort of traction on icy roads. I am a former driver of four-wheel-drive vehicles who, on some recent snowy mornings, with barely any snow on the ground, has slipped, slid and ploughed down my gravel road in what amounts to a big green Plymouth sled.
So why do I drive the thing? Like so many things, it’s all economics. For those of you who missed news here of the purchase in the fall of 2005, it happened when the transmission in my beloved 1996 Isuzu Rodeo pretty much blew up. Repairs were going to run more than $2,000. It had gone a lot of miles, and was a serious guzzler of gasoline.
At the same time, my Aunt Fern, down in Scottsville, Ky., was in the market for a new van and wanted to get rid of her green Plymouth Voyager. She said she would sell it to me for half the Kelley Blue Book value.
Less than the cost of a new transmission for the Isuzu.
I bought it. Had to.
From the beginning, the van has been called, simply, “Aunt Fern.” Which has resulted in such phrases as, “Aunt Fern is running low on oil,” “I’m going out to warm up Aunt Fern,” “Where in the heck did I park Aunt Fern?” and “Aunt Fern needs a bath — where’s the big sponge?”
Given the bad press I’ve given her, this week I relate a van-ownership advantage I have discovered. (Besides the great handling, panoramic windshield and the “Maine: The Way Life Should Be” bumper sticker.)
Here it is: I can change clothes, completely, in the back, without anyone detecting that I have temporarily transformed the vehicle into a changing room with more space than the ones at TJ Maxx. Don’t worry, part of the success of this is that the van’s rear windows are tinted, helping to obscure the interior.
In the past, I have many times crawled into the back and changed one piece of clothing, from a fancy top to a sweatshirt to take a walk at McCormick’s Creek State Park, for instance, or trading jeans for tights to be properly dressed for a yoga class.
But one recent Monday morning, still wearing a lot of flannel and yes, slippers, I realized if I took time to get dressed in my work clothes, I would never get my 9-year-old to school on time. I made a fast decision and grabbed my cosmetic bag and the outfit I intended to wear, and dashed out the door.
We made it to Arlington Heights Elementary School with three minutes to spare. Thomas hurried to class; I climbed into the back of the van and somehow got dressed, swiped some mineral powder across my face and brushed on mascara. Without anyone knowing.
I think. I wondered at the time it anyone at AIT, the business next to the school parking lot, could see me flailing around as I donned black dress-pants, a sweater and more in a vehicle not designed for full-fledged costume changes.
Aunt Fern’s right passengerside rear end sports a Maine bumper sticker. Laura Lane | Hoosier Times
I knew I had pulled it off, though, when I got to the paper and three co-workers complimented my outfit and said the equivalent of, “You look nice today.”
I figure I ought to get dressed in the van more often.
Another van-driving advantage presented itself this past week. I stopped by the White River Co-op to purchase a few bales of straw to keep my outside dogs warm and toasty in the recent near-zero weather. The guy at the co-op didn’t have any twine to tie two bales onto my luggage rack, and I didn’t want to buy the bigger-than-my-head roll they sell. So I had the guy shove one into the van, where it rested nicely next to the second row of seats. I could have squeezed two more giant bales inside and still had plenty of room to see out the windows.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I transported two 10-year-old girls in the van to and from a service project. I told them to disregard all of the straw on the floor. “You need a truck,” Sydney Spencer announced. “Or you could buy our 1997 Suburban. You need something to haul stuff in.”
She’s probably right. But where would I change clothes?
License plates at museum
More than a few times during my car-columnist days, I have encountered — in barns, sheds, garages, back rooms — amazing collections of old license plates. Often rusty, usually neatly nailed to the wall. The owners recall how they came across almost every one.
At an auction at Pumpkin Center in Orange County a few years ago, I interviewed Lee and Kim Walker, who waited hours on a sweltering day to bid on one thing: a 1937 Indiana license plate for their 1937 Chevy coupe.
The Monroe County History Center currently is displaying Cary Curry’s collection of 106 license plates, dating from 1912 to 2006. They are in excellent condition, and can be seen on the second floor.
In conjunction with the exhibit, museum intern Patricia Amis is coordinating an April 19 event at the history center, located at 202 E. Sixth St. in Bloomington. There will be a special exhibit on the history of automobile manufacturing, and Amis hopes people who own vintage cars will come and park around the center for the day. Anyone with an old car who wants to participate can contact Lisa Simmons at the history center. Call her at 812-332-2517 or send e-mail to education@monroehistory.org or to Amis at pamis@indiana.edu.
Got a story to tell about a car or truck? Call 812-331-4362, send an e-mail to lane@heraldt.com or a letter to My Favorite Ride, P.O. Box 909, Bloomington, IN 47402.
My Favorite Ride: by Laura Lane H-T columnist | lane@heraldt.com
January 27, 2008
When I refer to my personal vehicle in this column, I don’t often say anything nice. It’s a 10-year-old minivan, for goodness sake, with 137,408 miles on the odometer and a smashed driver’s-side front end.
(The damage was not my fault. Really. I was driving to French Lick one evening for work during tornadolike conditions when an uprooted tree flew into the road and into my front corner panel. I felt lucky at the angle; a few feet higher and I might have been impaled. I never got around to reporting it to my insurance company, and consider the crumpled metal and cracked headlight a graphic representation of the dangers of my job.)
“Aunt Fern,” parked in the driveway. She’s not pretty — notice the front-end damage — but is quite functional. Laura Lane | Hoosier Times
Last week, in admiring Herb Terry’s giant Cadillac, I lamented my van’s ability to maintain any sort of traction on icy roads. I am a former driver of four-wheel-drive vehicles who, on some recent snowy mornings, with barely any snow on the ground, has slipped, slid and ploughed down my gravel road in what amounts to a big green Plymouth sled.
So why do I drive the thing? Like so many things, it’s all economics. For those of you who missed news here of the purchase in the fall of 2005, it happened when the transmission in my beloved 1996 Isuzu Rodeo pretty much blew up. Repairs were going to run more than $2,000. It had gone a lot of miles, and was a serious guzzler of gasoline.
At the same time, my Aunt Fern, down in Scottsville, Ky., was in the market for a new van and wanted to get rid of her green Plymouth Voyager. She said she would sell it to me for half the Kelley Blue Book value.
Less than the cost of a new transmission for the Isuzu.
I bought it. Had to.
From the beginning, the van has been called, simply, “Aunt Fern.” Which has resulted in such phrases as, “Aunt Fern is running low on oil,” “I’m going out to warm up Aunt Fern,” “Where in the heck did I park Aunt Fern?” and “Aunt Fern needs a bath — where’s the big sponge?”
Given the bad press I’ve given her, this week I relate a van-ownership advantage I have discovered. (Besides the great handling, panoramic windshield and the “Maine: The Way Life Should Be” bumper sticker.)
Here it is: I can change clothes, completely, in the back, without anyone detecting that I have temporarily transformed the vehicle into a changing room with more space than the ones at TJ Maxx. Don’t worry, part of the success of this is that the van’s rear windows are tinted, helping to obscure the interior.
In the past, I have many times crawled into the back and changed one piece of clothing, from a fancy top to a sweatshirt to take a walk at McCormick’s Creek State Park, for instance, or trading jeans for tights to be properly dressed for a yoga class.
But one recent Monday morning, still wearing a lot of flannel and yes, slippers, I realized if I took time to get dressed in my work clothes, I would never get my 9-year-old to school on time. I made a fast decision and grabbed my cosmetic bag and the outfit I intended to wear, and dashed out the door.
We made it to Arlington Heights Elementary School with three minutes to spare. Thomas hurried to class; I climbed into the back of the van and somehow got dressed, swiped some mineral powder across my face and brushed on mascara. Without anyone knowing.
I think. I wondered at the time it anyone at AIT, the business next to the school parking lot, could see me flailing around as I donned black dress-pants, a sweater and more in a vehicle not designed for full-fledged costume changes.
Aunt Fern’s right passengerside rear end sports a Maine bumper sticker. Laura Lane | Hoosier Times
I knew I had pulled it off, though, when I got to the paper and three co-workers complimented my outfit and said the equivalent of, “You look nice today.”
I figure I ought to get dressed in the van more often.
Another van-driving advantage presented itself this past week. I stopped by the White River Co-op to purchase a few bales of straw to keep my outside dogs warm and toasty in the recent near-zero weather. The guy at the co-op didn’t have any twine to tie two bales onto my luggage rack, and I didn’t want to buy the bigger-than-my-head roll they sell. So I had the guy shove one into the van, where it rested nicely next to the second row of seats. I could have squeezed two more giant bales inside and still had plenty of room to see out the windows.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I transported two 10-year-old girls in the van to and from a service project. I told them to disregard all of the straw on the floor. “You need a truck,” Sydney Spencer announced. “Or you could buy our 1997 Suburban. You need something to haul stuff in.”
She’s probably right. But where would I change clothes?
License plates at museum
More than a few times during my car-columnist days, I have encountered — in barns, sheds, garages, back rooms — amazing collections of old license plates. Often rusty, usually neatly nailed to the wall. The owners recall how they came across almost every one.
At an auction at Pumpkin Center in Orange County a few years ago, I interviewed Lee and Kim Walker, who waited hours on a sweltering day to bid on one thing: a 1937 Indiana license plate for their 1937 Chevy coupe.
The Monroe County History Center currently is displaying Cary Curry’s collection of 106 license plates, dating from 1912 to 2006. They are in excellent condition, and can be seen on the second floor.
In conjunction with the exhibit, museum intern Patricia Amis is coordinating an April 19 event at the history center, located at 202 E. Sixth St. in Bloomington. There will be a special exhibit on the history of automobile manufacturing, and Amis hopes people who own vintage cars will come and park around the center for the day. Anyone with an old car who wants to participate can contact Lisa Simmons at the history center. Call her at 812-332-2517 or send e-mail to education@monroehistory.org or to Amis at pamis@indiana.edu.
Got a story to tell about a car or truck? Call 812-331-4362, send an e-mail to lane@heraldt.com or a letter to My Favorite Ride, P.O. Box 909, Bloomington, IN 47402.