Green Hornet to the Rescue

To say I loved my Green Hornet would be an understatement. She was, and still is, my favorite car.  Shamrock green, four door, 4-on-the-floor, bucket seats, tape player, driver’s seat fits my little butt perfectly, Green Hornet.  It didn’t matter that I had to leave the window down to reach in and open the driver’s door because the handle was broken. Or when it was winter and I crawled through the passenger door. Or when the passenger door handle broke and I had to climb into the back then up and over the bucket seats to get into the driver's seat.  I didn’t care. I loved that car.

I loved her so much because she gave me a freedom I hadn’t had before, but especially because I didn’t have to ride the school bus anymore.  However, it’s her fault I almost flunked 7th period P.E.  It was!  She would call to me from the parking lot and a few too many times I answered.  She’d smile at me as I walked up to her and roar for me as I turned the ignition to start her up.  We’d slowly inch our way out of the parking lot trying not to be too conspicuous.  She wasn’t quiet. As soon as we got a half mile down the road, I’d open her up so we could fly, windows down, hair whippin’, AC/DC blasting.

We were inseparable. I couldn’t go anywhere without her:  obviously.  To school, work, youth group, the river, grandma’s, town, wherever. It didn’t matter because we were together. I put a lot of miles on my little Green Hornet; she never let me down. But, one day she started wobbling, uncontrollably.  I had to pull over to check on her. 

Turns out I was driving her on a flat tire, for, oh let’s say three miles.  Apparently bad things happen to the structure when you do that.  Leaving her in some stranger’s driveway, I walked the last two miles home. Dad picked her up and brought her home. Much to my horror he didn’t drive her into the shop to fix her up, instead he put her in the boneyard.  I bawled.  I said, “She’s totally fixable dad, doesn’t she just need a new tire? I’ll pay for it. Please dad.” “NO,” was his definitive answer. She stayed in the boneyard.  She was dead, and I had killed her. 

She wasn’t alone though.  There was the pumpkin orange Chevy truck dad always let me shift when we drove around together. It was dead too. The blue Chevy Impala I crawled into the back seat of and took a nap when I was 10. There were a lot of trucks used on the farm that’d seen better days, along with old hay rakes, disc harrows, cultivators, and tractors, only John Deere. All dead. All decaying on a relatively small portion of the 265 acres of Old McDonald’s Farm.  

I missed her terribly.  My freedom was gone without her, and I was back to riding the bus.  Grass grew up around her tires each summer, snow buried her every winter. I hated seeing her that way. Neglected. Grass growing up  all around her. Apparently, dad was teaching me a lesson about responsibility. I learned it for sure, but not until my little Green Hornet had rusted beyond repair.  I always wished dad would just dig a big hole and bury all the dead stuff so the place wouldn’t look like such a junkyard.  Except my Green Hornet.  She’d be the headstone.