July 1. That was the day that COOL rolled out of my life once and for all. And as I watched it riding off into the sunset, I knew I'd be feeling the loss for a long, long time.
By COOL I mean the 1965 Mercedes Benz 190C I owned with He Who Can't be Named. We bought it spontaneously a couple of years ago in a knee-jerk to reaction to turning the big 4-0.
"We may be for forty," we told each other. "But we're still COOL."
And so we were. This thing was a four-door, white-with-chrome trim, mobster car that wouldn't have looked out of place in a black-and-white Brit crime flick circa '66. It had 48,000 miles and barely a spot of rust. And it even had the Merc ring on the tip of the hood.
This was a big car in every sense. Unlike the silent, hermetically sealed luxury car of today, this thing drove like a Sherman Tank. The motor didn't purr; it rumbled. And here's the clincher: It had a trunk big enough for five dead bodies, (fictional of course.) Those kind of cars don't come along often and at 40, we couldn't resist.
During our short stint of ownership, we'd fired it up, roll down the windows, and cruise the city in the summer, waving at on-lookers and listening to golden oldies AM radio. The Everly Brothers, Sha-na-na and The Beatles.
The car didn't go fast and sometimes it needed coaxing when the light turned green, but like a pet who's been with the family for 18 years, you never expected too much and were just glad it was still out and about.
It wasn't in bad shape; it just needed a good tune up, a few new sparkplugs and some carb work, nothing an old-school mechanic couldn't have handled.
Sometimes at the end of a sun-soaked day when were driving down Spring Garden Road, listening to the tinny tunes and seeing the young babes on sidewalks dressed in retro sixties garb, it almost was 1965. Those moments were golden, COOL.
But, alas, we didn't have the COOL lifestyle to match our COOL car. For starters, we have two kids and the '65 Merc had no seat belts in the back. There were laps belts in front but no airbags. I guess they had a different definition of safety back in '65.
The other problem was the lack of time for TLC. Having a car of this vintage is like having another child. It demands your time and attention which is in such short supply when you're a parents.
The saddest part of this story is that we already had the car we needed, a practical vehicle with all the safety features, room for kids and their stuff; a car, in other words, badly lacking in COOL.
I believe, the industry buzz word for our family car is Cute Ute, which is a catchy little marketing term for what is essentially a dull car. It's not a flashy SUV or one of those spiffy lifted-up station wagons. It's not roomy like a mini-van, and it certainly isn't executive or sporty.
It's just a Cute Ute, something they probably market to the "Yummy Mummy." Yummy Mummy? Ok, now I'm going to throw up.
Anyway, we buffed up the old Merc and said good-bye to COOL. It did my heart good to see that the people who bought it really were COOL. The old Merc deserved at least that.
And now when I torque around town in my Cute Ute, I sometimes tune into Golden Oldies AM and remember the days when I was COOL.
