Roger Pires Nov 26, 2009
When he's not offering his take on daily life, Roger Pires spends his days as a computer systems analyst. It's not exactly a glamorous calling but hey, it pays the bills. He enjoys hockey, canoeing, snowshoeing, and spending as much time as he possibly can outdoors. He lives in Udora with his wife and two kids, who are his prime inspiration for Ravenshoe Ramblings.
Previous
The Legend
She was a rose between two thorns. Actually, you could argue quite the opposite.
I pulled into the parking lot at the office the other day and shoehorned my old beater into a space between two impressive metal machines. To my right was the pride of German engineering: all gleaming, waxed finish and leather upholstery. On the left was an SUV large enough to house a family of twelve. My two neighbours sparkled in the late autumn sun looking like they’d never seen a concession road. Between them was my Sunfire, a remnant of the last century and adorned with the best vinyl money can buy. It was coated in a thick batter of November rain and country dirt. The rim of rust lining the doorframe gave it an air of sophistication like a touch of gray around the temples.
On the way to work that morning, the heap had hit a milestone. Somewhere on the outskirts of Mount Albert, the odometer had turned: 2…5…0…0…0…0. A quarter of a million kilometres. Almost six-and-a-half times around the equator. In the sixteenth century, Ferdinand Magellan attempted the first circumnavigation of our fair planet. He did so holed up in a dank ship for nearly three years. He survived mutinies, endured the ravages of scurvy, boiled his own urine for drinking water and, falling short of his goal, became a hood ornament at the hands of some angry natives. Five hundred years later, I accomplished the feat six times over by driving my kid to hockey and popping in to Canadian Tire to buy light bulbs. The old boy must be spinning in his grave.
Most young men fall in love with Mustangs, Camaros, and Beemers. I’ve never aspired to the Best in Show. My heart has always gone out to the front-porch mutt. The Heinz ‘57’. The Sunfire is just the latest in a long line of mixed-breeds and back alley hounds that have hauled my sorry carcass across the country.
My very first ragamuffin was a ’72 Mercury Montego. It hadn’t been equipped with such modern inventions as power steering and power brakes. It handled like an aircraft carrier and on days I had to parallel park I could forego doing the bench press at the gym. Closing the doors dumped a healthy layer of rust onto the pavement below. The rubber mats doubled as floorboards. And the tiny speaker that dangled from a wire under the dash made the Top Forty sound like a jigsaw tearing through sheet metal. But it ran. And ran. And ran. And it carried eight victorious members of a high school rugby team home from a championship.
Next came the ‘75 Torino. It had the classic lines of Baby Boomer Americana. Its auburn finish was right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And unlike the Montego, it wasn’t rotting from the inside out. Not a hint of rust disturbed the pristine metal of its chassis. But sometime between rolling off the assembly line and ending up in the parking lot of my student residence, it blew a rear seal and dripped more oil than a Greek salad. Since fixing it would require an entire semester of pub money, I opted to carry a case of oil in the trunk instead. A week’s worth of trips to Food City and Brewer’s Retail would lighten my supply by a quart. The trips to Windsor to visit my folks were another story. I would have to pull over every hour to inject a new quart. When the pistons started to click like a ten-speed with hockey cards in its spokes, it was time to top up. Either that or the engine would seize and I would need that ten-speed to get home.
The greatest of them all was The Legend. She started life as a ’79 Ford Fairmont and had all the style and flair of a four-slot toaster. (I say “she” but I’m only guessing here. I’m not familiar enough with automotive anatomy to detect gender in a sedan). She was the colour of Belgian chocolate and as slow as Canadian molasses - a leisure suit on a set of whitewalls. The poor thing had the misfortune of being owned by a recent grad whose greatest financial decision was whether to serve gravy or ketchup with the Kraft Dinner. Still, I treated that heap like royalty; I changed her oil every 50,000 kilometres whether she needed it or not.
She could do zero to sixty in just under half-an-hour. It didn’t matter how hard you stood on the gas pedal, that square box had all the pick-up of an advancing glacier. Traffic lights were particularly entertaining. In the first few seconds after the light turned green, I would be passed by school children and old ladies pulling bundle buggies. But after three or four minutes she started to hum, just in time to hit the next light. How did she come to be known as The Legend? The name is largely apocryphal. But I think it was given to her about the time of the “big move”. Before embarking on a trip to Europe, I loaded her up with all my worldly possessions. It took three guys sitting on the trunk to close it. The Dirty Harry-beige seat covers – front and back - were covered with stereo components, pieces of a water bed, and miscellaneous boxes. I had barely enough room to wedge myself into the driver’s seat. She hauled her motley payload four hundred kilometres to Windsor. She never let me down. I drove her for another three years until she finally expired around the 350,000-kilometre mark.
I don’t know how much the Sunfire has left in it, but I’ll stand by it until its dying sputter. It’s in good company.
