Point of view: The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune

By Gail Farrelly

I’m 18 and still live at home. I’m a maroon, 1991 Buick Skylark in excellent condition, and I have no intention of retiring any time soon. Lots of guys my age or even younger have been sent out to pasture, but not me. My owner wouldn’t think of trading me in for a newer model.

That’s not only because they don’t make Skylarks any more, it’s because she says she’s perfectly satisfied with me. Oh joy! Someone who appreciates age and experience! She always brings me in for checkups and keeps me clean and shiny. And waxed, you ask? But, of course! The constant care means that, if I do say so myself, I look and work as good, if not better, than the much younger guys.

My owner is a patient soul, but the one thing that annoys her is the constant advice of friends and acquaintances, to “Buy yourself a new car.” She’s tired of listening to it and always gives the same response, “Why? I like this one.”

Sometimes when we’re driving along she confides to me what she’d like to say to these people: “I don’t understand why you don’t take care better care of what you have now, instead of always looking to buy the next model. Newer doesn’t always mean better.”

Listening to her is the least I can do, she takes such good care of me. My owner is a writer, you see, and often mumbles to herself when she’s working out the dialogue for her characters. I’ve become used to constant chatter. That’s okay, she deserves to be granted some of that poetic license stuff.

Today, though, I could see her trying to control her temper in the parking lot at the pool when one of her well-meaning friends, after advising her to dump me, added, “Even my 21- year-old son just bought himself a brand-new car, a foreign one, with all the latest bells and whistles.” A few minutes later, when we were about a mile away from the parking lot, my owner more than mumbled. She closed all the windows and at the first traffic light bellowed, “Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt.” She borrowed that line from Herbert Hoover.

I did have one nervous moment a few weeks ago, when my owner had just picked up her mail and proceeded to read it in the car. She had received a letter from General Motors, promising her a cash award for buying a new GM car in the next few weeks. But when she read the section saying that new GM vehicles would be backed by U.S. government-backed warranties, for some reason she started laughing hysterically and ripped up the letter. Then she went into her mumbling act again. It sounded something like: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help. Yeah, sure.” Then more laughter. I didn’t see what was so funny.

Whew! My future is safe, at least for now. What more can any of us say in this economy?

Gail Farrelly's (www.FarrellySistersOnline.com) fourth mystery, The Virtual Heiress, will be published next year. Her 1991 Buick Skylark has listened to numerous drafts.

Point of view is an occasional column open to all readers.

This is part of the August 20, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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