Remember T tops? (Brian Katcher)

 

She was an '85 Buick Regal limited. She was my father's regular car, which he sold to me when I turned 16, for a very low price. Silver. Two doors. It was a boat, I could drive five friends around comfortably. My first ticket. My second ticket. My third...you get the picture. I was voted worst driver by my high school peers. My first fender bender. No center console. You could snuggle with your date.

But the best thing...T tops! A poor man's convertible. Two panels you'd remove from the roof of the car. Roll down the windows and you'd be practically driving with the top down. My friends soon learned they could stand in the back seat like a couple of Miss America candidates. And maybe fire paintball guns at lawn gnomes.

I drove that car two years in high school and four years in college. I once took it to South Dakota (from Missouri) just because. I slept in her. I changed her oil myself. I washed her.

I had to get rid of her my first year of teaching I had to stop driving her, when I tried to drive up a small hill and couldn't make it. 

She lives on in my first book, Playing With Matches.

I know she was eventually scrapped, but I still ride her in my dreams, T-tops down, Spinal Tap non-ironically blasting from the cassette deck...sixteen again.