Snapshot 2: Convertibles

Lately, I've had visions of myself in a convertible.  I had one 36 years ago, when I bought a brand new burgundy MGB.  I couldn't drive a stick, but I saw myself in the "B" anyway, with its tiny windshield, three wipers, and a picnic basket strapped on the little trunk's luggage rack as I sped through the British countryside for a rendezvous.  Didn't seem to matter much to me that I had no idea how to drive a standard, that I was living in northern West Virginia at the time, and had no boyfriend with whom to picnic.

It was after earning my masters degree and taking off for a new life in Wheeling (is there some irony in the name?) that the romantic images started coming.  So a friend's husband drove my new car off the lot and out onto farmland back roads where there was very little traffic, and proceeded to give me driving lessons.   I learned quickly and soon had the top down and the wind whipping my hair.  I was free.  This relationship with my little car lasted approximately two years, until I had moved for a new job, and my new husband decided the car wasn't practical, so we sold it.  Big mistake.  I feel now that I had given up something beyond the car -- I had also lost my sense of entitlement to the freedom and excitement that it had provided me.

So flash forward these many years and now, once again, I want a convertible.  Since we live a great part of the year on the west coast of Florida, with some back lanes following the contours of the  Gulf of Mexico and island hopping along the Intracoastal Waterway, and the rest of the year back in West Virginia with curving roads and mountain vistas, what better time in my life for a convertible, the wind, and the freedom?

My husband, the car nut, needed little encouragement to begin a determined  search, exhausting to me, for every deal to be had, perusing newspaper ads, car lots, and online sites.  Our neighbor, Herb, was of a mind that I belonged in a Mustang, a notion that agreed with Greg, my friend, Cindy, and my Uncle Clayton in Tampa who insisted that I "buy American!"  But Greg also was hoping a BMW would be in my future.   We even test drove one that had so many bells and whistles that I couldn't for the life of me feel anything but overwhelmed, and perhaps a bit undeserving, a sentiment that my friend, Roy, vehemently refuted.  Nevertheless, I told Greg that I'd know my car when I saw it, just as I had immediately identified and bonded with my last car, a glossy black Bonneville.  The man is a sweetheart, but he was having a hard time being patient for me to come around.

Another complication was that a previously nagging sporadic shimmy had us believing that, at over 160,000 miles, the old Pontiac couldn't hold on much longer, so we were thinking we'd be forced into a new car (to us) anyway.  Lo and behold, a local mechanic Greg has great confidence in came through for us, finding and correcting a fairly simple spark plug problem, and now the old Bonne drives like a top.  So no rush, right?  Another thing is that Greg and I have owned several Bonnevilles, and we love the look and feel of them.  Well, this next part is a tad bit peculiar . . .   (Then, again, I am certain that my dates with serendipity haven't expired:  see an earlier post of that notion.)

A couple of Mondays ago, after delivering a table to Mrs. Bartholomew, Cindy and I had lunch on the deck of Sloppy Joes on Treasure Island.  Afterwards, driving onto St. Pete Beach, Cindy exclaimed "There's your car!"  I turned to look at a sweet silver-blue Pontiac G6 convertible with a "for sale" sign on its door.  The peculiar part is this:  just as Cindy yelled, and whipped her SUV around the corner to backtrack to the car, I was listening to a cell phone message from Greg telling me that if we're nearby, we should stop to look at a Pontiac convertible an individual was displaying for sale at St. Pete Beach.  Yep.  I was getting a double serving of "buy me."

Long story short:  Greg and I met the owner that same afternoon, when we discovered the car had a hardtop, a feature we love but had felt was out of our price range.  This one was stylishly low and it slipped easily into the trunk;  we took a test drive, shook hands afterwards, and drove her home.  The owner, Tom, followed us, received a check in good faith, and waved 'bye.  There we stood in front of our garage with my convertible, and an oddly calm certainty that this is the one I was meant to have.

This one suits me.

Watching kite-boarders from my "new" Pontiac G 6