There is news talk afoot about the possible demise of Saturn. I take this personally, since we have been a family of Saturns since 1993-—for all the right reasons.
We bought our first Saturn when purchasing a car at the best price without negotiation was a revolutionary concept. The cars have been dependable and the service (even though they’ve recently had to cut out the free doughnuts) delightful.
In our youth, our car choices ranged from Porsches to one ill-guided affair with a classic 1951 bullet-nose Studebaker that once made it all the way down one of the steepest hills in San Francisco without brakes. Somehow we lived to tell the tale, about both our brushes with trendiness and with nostalgia, but you can see how it is that the move to a brand new American-made car held appeal.
I feel about our Saturns the way I imagine my Dad must have felt about his Oldsmobiles. The Olds was the car for his generation of men the way Saturn has been for many women 50+: the same generation of women who know what I’m talking about when I say CP Shades, Prada backpacks and Mephisto.
In fact, you may remember that famous slogan Oldsmobile used in an unsuccessful pitch to pass the car’s legacy onto a new generation: “Not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
It didn’t work–not in our house, nor for most of the Boomer generation. In my case, the Olds was not just my father’s car—it was him. Solid and steady, the big, brown Olds had absolutely no self-consciousness about itself that it had slipped from icon to relic over the years. It was also stubborn–with a robust sense of humor.
My mother begged Dad to trade the car in. The first time was two years into its life, somewhere in the mid to late 80′s, when people thought it made good financial as well as style sense to trade in and usually up every year or two at most. This was one place where Dad dug in, refusing to budge for his last 15 years or so, until he passed away in the early 2000’s.
A retired physician, Dad practiced his surgery on the car, which was increasingly held together by surgical tape in strategic locations. The pop-up button that locked the front right door was somehow rigged to continue operating long after the plastic had become detached…and there was something cock-eyed and nerdy about every one of the mirrors.
I can’t say if he knew when he purchased his pride and joy that this was to be his last car. He just simply never saw the need to replace it. And in fact, in its last days, when all it had to do was make it back and forth from the retirement community to the bank, grocery store and various doctors just a few blocks away, it did just fine.
I’m glad Dad didn’t have to see Oldsmobile go out of business in his lifetime–he just beat it by a few years. But I may not be as fortunate in regards to Saturn. In my own way, I have settled into a long-term relationship with my comfortable and trusted car. And while I’m not much younger than Dad was when he got his last car, I have the feeling that there is much more for me yet to come.
But then again, in the glove department: one precious inheritance I keep close to me always, just in case: the roll of Dad’s surgical tape.
Agreed. I never thought I was vain until I had a mastectomy at age 39. I was devastated and told the doc I wanted to wake up with implants. Now at age 60, I am lopsided and wondering if I was just avoiding the inevitable. You get what you get and you
Sounds very interesting.
Spike, you are awesome! Love your perspective, thanks for sharing.
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