No, this has nothing to do with IBM computers.

Mother's Day is always a little sad for me. Not having a mom around to call and wish Happy Mother's Day to somehow never seems to get easier even as time passes. Yesterday, I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about one person's reflection on his mom through a car of hers that he still owned, and how he was having difficulties parting with it. He affectionately called the car "The Big Red Sled". Link to the story.

This made me think about my mom's old blue 1979 Mercury Zephyr Station Wagon. A car that we purchased just as my mom and dad were getting divorced - with just a few hundred miles on it, we drove it cross country from New York as mom, my sister, and I started life on our own in California. It was definitely a "Big Blue Box".

At the time, that car was really cool. It had every option available (from cloth seats to power everything to a really cool blue interior to a 3.3 liter 6 cylinder engine). It was really neat. It was a big blue box. But like all cars of that era, it didn't seem to do well in the long-term durability department. I remember as mom had that car 10 years later (with well over 100k miles on it) that it had all sorts of problems, kind of like what was described in the WSJ story. I remembered the morning mom telling me how it caught fire while warming up (an eternal oil leaker, one morning, the oil leaked on to the catalytic converter and started a small fire which was put out by a passing school bus driver with a fire extinguisher). How it hated starting. Steering wheel cracked. Windows that would go down, but not back up. And finally, the thing that convinced her maybe it was time to give up the car, but the steering shaft snapping in half in the middle of a left turn because the power steering pump had done its morning cut out/in/out routine at an inopportune time.

I have lots of fond memories of that car. I learned to drive in that car. I spent a lot of time going places in that car. I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time in that car. It even made it on to an episode of Simon and Simon (remember that series?). It served us well. It just wore out. Mom I think kept that car 5 years longer than it had business being in existence. The car dealer gave her $500 as sympathy when she traded it. But we were poor and getting a new car wasn't something mom could afford until I was out of college and on my own. She finally traded it for a blue Ford Escort station wagon that, honestly, endeared itself to none of us. When mom passed away, my sister asked, "Please don't make me drive the Escort." With its less than hearty 1.9 liter 4 cylinder engine, it struggled to make it up on-ramps. I considered it unsafe getting it on to the freeway, where flooring the gas pedal just meant louder noises from the engine. I traded it at my first opportunity.

Funny what reading articles in the WSJ will trigger in terms of thoughts. I hope the car has found a nice resting place somewhere. I hope it's not still on the road 29 years later...

And Mom, Happy Mother's Day. Thanks for sacrificing by putting up with that old car for so long so I could get through college and my sister could have things we might not otherwise have been able to afford.