So Long

The van is gone. I know it sounds silly, but I'm kind of sad to see it go. It stopped working about a year ago, last June. It had transmission problems at the very least, but I'm sure there was a lot more that was wrong. We tried selling it, not as a working car but as parts, but that didn't go anywhere.

It was originally my parents' car, then Nancy and Todd had it and then they gave it to us. So, it has been around for awhile and has made many trips.

Back in mid-March I was busy around the house and looked up and saw a guy standing out by our fence. When I saw him, he motioned me to him, so I went out to see what he wanted. At the time we had two non-working cars in our drive-way, the van and the Volvo. He asked us if we would be willing to sell him one of our non-working cars. He was really interested in buying the Volvo, but we had plans for getting that fixed, so we told him the only car for sale was the van. He told a story why he was looking for a car, I don't know if it was true, but I tend to believe people until I have reason not to. He said he was looking for a car for his sister. She had two kids and was pregnant with her third and her husband had left her for some other guy. He didn't care if the cars didn't work because his mechanic friend was willing to help them get any car up and running to help out the situation.

We jump started the van and put coolant in it. Immediately, the wrong color of smoke came out of the tailpipe. We told him upfront the known things that were wrong with it, and once it was running he and Robert guessed about some other possible problems it might have. He talked it over with his sister, who was in his car (she was pregnant and two little kids were in the backseat) and he called up his mechanic friend. After some talk and discussion, they decided they would take it. We didn't ask for any money, we knew about how much it would cost to get it in good running condition, and it didn't seem right to ask for even $100. We helped him push it out of our drive-way (the car had no reverse) and we wished them luck as they drove off.

So, it was beat up and didn't look very pretty, but it served a purpose while we had it.