The Maxmobile, my deceased father's legacy, is on life support at a local auto repair shop. I feel guilty. I should have paid attention to that recurring rattling and the water puddling on the ground under the front end.
Now the engine's kaput, and the cost to install a replacement is sky-high. Somewhere in the great beyond, my dad, Max, is asking, How could you let this happen?
Surely he's shaking his dear bald head and pursing his lips like he did when taking me to get my learner's permit so many moons ago.
Though I was Max's girl in many ways — we shared a love for things as varied as math tricks and Mallomar cookies — I never inherited my father's affinity for automobiles.
My father owned six cars in his lifetime. He treasured them all, washing and waxing them every Saturday, poring over the owners' manuals and schmoozing with mechanics, enjoying automotive camaraderie.
For me, in my younger days, a car was always a means to an end, good for getaways, whether tooling around to Queens pizza and falafel joints with my high school friends on a Saturday night, taking off for Jones Beach on summer Sundays or driving up the Thruway to college in Albany.
Yes, I've kept a low car profile, beginning with the secondhand sky-blue Duster I bought as a young reporter and later, the new red Citation, both lemons.
The pricey Volvo wagon I singled out for safety when I was pregnant with my first baby resembled a little yellow school bus. The ultimate uncoolmobile was my no-frills Saturn — without power windows or locks.
I drove that Saturn for 11 years, down to its rapidly deteriorating tires, until I traded it for a bathroom repair and paint job from Mike, my handyman. A week later, my mother called and offered me my father's 1999 Toyota Camry. The car had been sitting in the lot behind my parents' Bayside apartment ever since he died. For three months, it was an immovable fixture in the third parking space next to the playground.
Immediately, I hopped on a southbound bus to pick it up. Amazingly, I discovered that in eight years, my father had racked up only 6,600 miles on his car — barely more than 800 miles a year.
Admittedly, he never traveled far, but my father cherished that automobile. I think he may have felt about it the way he felt about me once I hit my teenage years — he just loved knowing it was there.
Despite spending less and less time together, my dad and I had an unspoken, tight bond. He wasn't the demonstrative type, but his pride and love were obvious. Still, like many fathers of teens, he was loath to lend me his wheels after I got my license. He grumbled about wasting his 40-cents-a-gallon gas. But I always persisted and he nearly always relented, a car de deux that lasted throughout my visits home during my college years. After graduation, I got my first full-time job, in Troy, and he helped me find my used Duster.
My father had many interests over his long life, including the New York Giants, pinochle, stoopball, handball, "The Honeymooners," delicatessens and Borsch Belt comedians.
But his joy for his cars reigned supreme. For a man who lived simply with few possessions, a mild-mannered accountant who worked for New York state his entire life and rarely drove beyond it, he was passionate, protective and possessive around his car.
Whenever he visited me at my home upstate, the first thing he did was haul out the garden hose, a big yellow sponge and a bucket of soapy water. Out there on my driveway, washing and waxing, he was a happy man.
And now, six years later, the Camry — his last vehicle and my inheritance — awaits a new motor like a transplant patient anticipating a new heart. It has journeyed more than 80,000 miles without Max.
Yes, scrapes and scuffs abound. However, this old reliable tan sedan, offered exactly when I needed it most, continues to give a kind of fatherly protection that feels good at any age.
Thanks, Dad.
Tina Lincer is a Loudonville writer.