When I was about 9 or 10, I remember standing on our front lawn watching the family car being towed away. I felt like shouting, “No, you can’t take that! The Jetta is part of our family!”.
It’s the only car I remembered our family owning and it had so many memories attached to it. The first eight years of my life were spent to-ing and fro-ing in the little diesel Volkswagen Jetta. We traveled to Charlottetown from Souris at least twice a week. It took us down bumpy red dirt roads to our own private beaches. It carried us to my relatives and friends in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and beyond!
My mother knew how to pack the trunk to its greatest capacity, and my siblings and I knew how to fill the back seat area to its greatest (or overflowing) capacity. Sometimes there would be my sister, my brother in a car seat, me, our golden retriever, and even her puppies in the back seat! The Jetta had chugged along superbly despite the squabbles that sometime took place in its backseat.
The diesel engine had an amazing ability to lull me to sleep. I loved leaning against the window watching the fields full of lupins fly by and listening to the hum of the engine… and then the next thing I knew, we would be at our next destination.
I felt safe in the little old Jetta – even when it started seeing it’s doctor more frequently. It felt solid and secure.
That’s why when the tow truck started hauling the old Jetta away, I felt like it was taking a part of my happy life a way – just to be replaced by a boring new Nissan Stanza. I never grew to love that car. I’d still go back to that old diesel Jetta any day.
