Since the last time I wrote about The Family Car, a lot has changed. As I mentioned in the last line of the story in ThisFastLife back in 2017, I had a vision in mind for the car. Being true to my word, the car is currently undergoing a bit of a transformation. Before I tell you about all of that, however, I want to give you a little background as to how we arrived at the point where we are now.
In September of 2018, my brother-in-law, Washington, and I took a trip to Berkeley (California) to to visit my parents, and to have some of the most fun we’ve ever had in our lives (we didn’t plan on that, but good company makes any and all activities extraordinarily exciting, and we are both great company… What can I say?). One afternoon when my cousins from Fresno were visiting, my lovely mother launched into a tirade about how disgusted she was with The 535i and The fact that it had been sitting motionless on the curb for the past several months. This tirade included truthful accusations about my father not taking care of the car, and not even driving it around the block—even after multiple AAA calls to get it cranked whenever I visited. “I’m tired of it, and I don’t want it in front of my house anymore… I’m selling it!” Until those last three words (four, if you count the contraction), I had not been stirred to move. I mean, I had already been down this road with my parents when I purchased another e28 in 2005. Instead of buying some stranger’s car, I attempted to structure a deal for The Family Car. Unfortunately, my father would not release the car (even though it had already started to languish under a magnolia tree), so I was forced to quench my 5er thirst with a 1987 535is that I named “Mays” after Dr. Benjamin E. Mays. I chose that name because the car was Salmon silver over cardinal red, but we’ll talk about that one another time.
At any rate, once my mother made her proclamation about selling our car to a stranger, I went into motion. Fortunately, my brother in law owns a trucking company, and as he read my mind, he began talking to me about how he could arrange a transporter within hours. Of course, we needed to get the car to crank before putting it on a trailer, so I called AAA and dropped some more bills on another battery. Before Washington knew it, we were ridin’, high-sidin’ through the Berkeley hills like I used to do when I was a youngsta. When this trip was first being conceived, I’d told him, my father in law, and my other brother in law how much I loved where I grew up—I had tried to explain how the roads around my house were an ever-present source of entertainment, but I knew that they couldn’t understand what the hell I was talking about that night we stood around the grill in Wilson, North Carolina. Uphills, downhills, hairpins, and cliffhangers… It was all part of what made me who I am, but they didn’t feel me. Well, once we cranked that 33 year old car up and I smashed off with Washington riding shotgun, I knew that my point of view was soon to be fully realized. She sounded so good echoing off of the hillside of Grizzly Peak—her voice bouncing off of the trees all through Wildcat Canyon with the sunroof open on that warm, sunny September day. We laughed, I told stories, got sideways, passed some people, and eventually brought her home. It was clear that she was not ready to be put out to pasture, so the decision was solidified to send her to Atlanta so she could start a new life. Without Washington being there, I don’t know if we could have pulled it off within the time frame that we were working with, but he assured me that it was all good.
Later that evening, as I thought about the situation, I couldn’t help but to also think about all of the years that I had wrapped up in knowing and loving that car. I thought about what it represented to me, and about what I have grown to love most in life. It was a journey that left automobilia, even though this car stuff rarely ever leaves me. When I met the woman who would eventually become my wife, I met one of her big sisters almost immediately thereafter. Davetta, (or, “Dave,” as I began to call her when I found out that her parents thought she was going to be a boy, and had thus named her after my father in law), had a car that she had named with her baby sister’s middle name when I came on the scene. I thought that was so cool because she had worked hard to get that car, and she put the same effort into attaining and maintaining it as she had at loving her sister. Over the years, I was lucky to have been taken in by both of my sister in laws, and I will always be grateful for the love that they’ve given me for over two decades. I know you’re probably asking what this has to do with shipping a car, but you have to let me get there on my own road… Here it is… Without Dave’s husband being with me when it came time for me to take possession of this car that I had literally grown up with, I don’t know if it would have been feasible to ship it to where I currently live without way more drama. He was there because she was there, and she was there because my wife was there. It was a connection of love and life and stories and circumstances that was remarkable to me, and it was a connection that I wanted to forever keep intact amongst our families (and the three generations that we now cover). For that reason, The Family Car was renamed “Marquetta,” which is my sister in law’s middle name, that evening. With that in mind, she will forever be cherished and taken care of, just as she has loved her baby sister (and the rest of her family) for all the time that I have known her. That said, please don’t let all of these lovely sentiments lead to a conversation about the fate of the Mercury Mystique that was named “Lanisha” when I stepped on the scene back in the ’98… Poor thang!
