Beyond Repair

The (mostly) dark green Dodge minivan is no longer part of our (mostly) aged fleet of cars. It is in the process of being donated to Cars4kids, which we hope is not a scam.

This is the car that spent the last 4 years in Arizona and California and just recently brought my son and all his worldly belongings (of which there were plenty) across the country in just 3 days. It sort of reminds me of Charlotte’s web, where the spider gives up her life so her young can prosper. That trip across the country simply did the old car in.

After our son pulled into the driveway, he mentioned that the brakes needed some attention. Well, it turns out that the brakes on the right side of the car were metal on metal, rather nonexistent. I can’t even imagine how he made it home. Someone commented that the way he must have done the 3,000-mile report in 3 days was by never stopping.

In addition, the gas tank cover was broken off, the doors didn't close well any longer. It was just a worn-out car.

I had planned to do any necessary minor repairs and then just give the car to a needy family. But $800 worth of brake work on an 11-year-old car was not in the budget.

We bought that car at a time when we were still driving swimming and school and religious school carpools. It was a great car for vacations with our children because there was a space between the two seats in the middle. There was no reason for “he’s on my side” complaints.

Both children had minor mishaps in parking garages and elsewhere that left the green van with many a dent and scrape. At one point I bought a can of dark green Rust-o-leum and instructed them to spray the dents before they rusted.


At one point in Arizona the driver side window shattered leaving hundreds of small pieces of glass, which can still be found in interior cracks and crevices.

The amazing thing is that this car was parked on the streets of San Francisco for 8 months loaded with everything my son owned, including a television and a million other things. It was never once vandalized. Maybe that is due to the tinted rear windows.

So with a little sadness, I say goodbye to the old green van – ZMM9441 – now stripped of its license plates as it sits outside Skyline Auto Repair waiting to be towed. I hope someone can make the necessary repairs to keep it on the road for just a little while longer.