Roll On, Corolla: A Boy & His Car

I don’t want to get all Giving Tree on you, but the car and I really did go a long way back. All the way to October 4, 1991. On that day, at Jim Coleman Toyota in Bethesda, Maryland, I took ownership of a brand-new, end-of-model-year, light blue Corolla. The address we wrote on the paperwork was my sister’s in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. I was 22 years old, living with my folks in suburban D.C., and had just landed my first real job up in glamorous Ewing, New Jersey. My sister kindly agreed to put me up till I found a place to live. And I’d certainly need a car to get to and from work. So the old man and I headed to the dealership.

We’d been a Chevrolet family—Impala, Cavalier, Citation—and I actually had my heart set on the Chevy Geo. I liked the way they sang “Geeee-OH!” on the commercials. But, I don’t know, I guess while I was away at college in Pittsburgh, my dad had become enamored with Toyotas. And the Corolla and Geo were basically the same car. So that’s what I ended up with, and I headed north on 95 in my first car, my very own car.

If Slick 50 wants me to do a commercial for them, I will happily do it. Back in those days there was very compelling advertising for that brand of… wait, what is Slick 50, anyway? Who knows, but I added it to the engine with the car’s first oil change. Twenty-one years later we were still running and I like to think Slick 50 had something to do with it. Or perhaps it had no effect whatsoever. I’m really not much of a gearhead.

I remember being kind of embarrassed that I had a new car. And then years later I was embarrassed that I had such an old car. Ah, the circle of life.

I drove to work everyday, listening to Howard Stern on the radio. The jerky boss would make me run errands, so some days I’d drive over to Pennsylvania, where a guy made slides for us. Eh, it was better than sitting in the office. A couple of times I’d make some lame excuse to leave work early. Then, in the parking lot, inside the car, I’d change into my suit and head off to a job interview.

Many nights after work I’d drive to the Rusty Scupper to meet up with my high-school pals Frances and Rob. Some comedian had a bit in those days: “They say don’t drink and drive. But how are you supposed to get home?” And that was funny to me, because how were you supposed to get home? I always did, though.

Finally I got a better job in New York City. There was a waiting list for a parking permit at the Princeton Junction train station. So Frances and also my pal Steve kindly let me park at their families’ homes near the station. I’d hang out in the city after work (oh, those New York girls!), take the late train back, walk to my car, and drive to the farmhouse basement apartment in Plainsboro where I lived. Then I’d sleep a few hours and do it all over again.

Songs about cars are all about freedom, freedom and girls, and it’s all true. As a working person I now had vacation time but didn’t have any money to go anywhere. Ah, but I had a car, so I could just pick a direction and go. My great buddy Sean was up in Toronto in graduate school, so I drove to Toronto. New England, I’d never really been there—off I went. How far west could I drive and get back in a week? Memphis via St. Louis, it turns out. Cheap-ass motels and funny little restaurants and mysterious late-night radio till the signal got too faint. If there was nothing to listen to, I’d pop in a cassette. The tape deck still worked in those days.

And yeah, girls. Secretly parked behind the Stewart’s Root Beer in Ewing, making out in the front seat with a nice-lady coworker. Or another girl, another front-seat session, outside her parents’ place in Maspeth, Queens—until she complained that I had “coffee breath.” (Hey, it was her idea to go to the diner.) And then the first one that really stuck. I was very much in love for a very long time and we drove all over the place: New Hope, Pennsylvania; Port Chester, New York (concert); New Preston, Connecticut (bed & breakfast); Providence, Rhode Island (New Year’s), Amish country; western Jersey (winery); Astoria, Queens (dinner party); Roscoe, New York (camping; the folding chairs stayed in my trunk ever since); to her folks in Yonkers on Christmas Day. I still miss seeing that “Free!” sign at the deserted Christmas tree stand on routes 1/9 North heading to the GWB.

Love and heartache are part-and-parcel, for me at least, and the Corolla was around in bad times too. Dropping the car off at Steve’s place one snowy morning, freshly heartbroken. As I pulled into the housing development, Meatloaf’s “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through” came on the car radio and I just started bawling my eyes out. Or driving west, reeling from even worse heartbreak, no idea where I was or where I was going, screaming at the top of my lungs. Love certainly wasn’t easy. Sean gave me the perfect mix tape, one side songs of love and one side songs of bitterness. I kept it in the glove compartment, just in case.

Owning a car is a major hassle: insurance, inspections, gasoline, oil, parking, tickets, repairs repairs repairs. (Slick 50 doesn’t prevent everything.) Moving up to Hoboken meant much less driving and many more worries. Finding a spot and then moving the car before the designated street-cleaning day became a very frustrating game. For a while there, if I woke up in the middle of the night I’d automatically get dressed and move the car, as that was the best time to find a space. I’ve frequently told the tale of my one attempt to watch the TV show Friends: A monkey was turning on a stereo, but then I noticed a parking space open up in front of my building, and I never saw Friends again.

And Hoboken is a bit “rougher” for a car than Plainsboro, New Jersey. Windshield smashed. Sideview mirror smashed. Taillight. Some punk cleverly pushed in the lock and stole my GPS. And parts kept wearing down and breaking. Muffler. Alternator. Tires. Headlights. Brakes (which make a gravelly sound when they’re on their last legs). Friend in Boston was getting out and the door handle snapped off in her hand. Water on the floorboards? That one was baffling, but we finally figured out that the trunk seal had given way. Occasionally human error was to blame: The time the girl borrowed the car and left the lights on when she parked it. The time I made an exit too late and ended up precariously balanced on the highway’s concrete median.

And then at 60,000 miles I was told I needed a new timing belt. Repair-wise, that was a pricey one, so it was decision time. It was a pretty old car by that point and eventually it becomes foolish to keep pouring money on repairs. I remember a serious discussion on the topic with my friend Allan, also an old-car owner. And I decided: Yes to the timing belt, but… this would be the final “big” repair. The time had come for logic, not sentiment.

I lied. That was 2005 and I spent quite a lot on repairs in the years after. The car was my friend and I had to take care of it, especially in its old age. When there were rust spots, I’d sand them and coat them with grey primer. When the fabric ceiling started to droop, I bought several types of glue till I found one that would hold it up. And yeah, the engine made some funny noises, the tape deck hadn’t worked in years, and the radio speakers often issued these fuzzed-out blasts on the downbeats (which on some songs sounded pretty cool). I’d go on a trip and get a rental car, and come home and realize, jeez, my car is kind of bare-bones. Those rentals sure steer smoothly, ya know?

But I have to say, through it all, my car always got me where I wanted to go. Visiting friends, visiting the folks. Going to the movies, concerts, Nets games, Asbury Park. Listened to countless hours of car radio: Discovered Glen Jones and X Ray Burns on WFMU on Sunday afternoons and wondered what these funny guys might look like. Saturday nights driving home from wherever, it was Vin Scelsa’s Idiot’s Delight on WFUV and if I was out past midnight, which I usually was, Dan Romanello’s Group Harmony Review. (Arriving back in Hoboken late one night, I was absolutely transfixed by Little Anthony & the Imperials’ rendition of “When You Wish Upon a Star” and knew I had to own it.) I drove all over the state writing roadside restaurant reviews for the Jersey section of the New York Times. I took photos of the restaurants and snuck my car in a time or two.

The Corolla even co-starred in one of the most favorite things I’ve written.

The car and I were all set to grow old together until Sandy had to come along and fuck things up. The Corolla took on a lot of water in the so-called Superstorm. And not just the floorboards this time. The seats were soaking wet. Folding chairs in the trunk, rusting. My insurance wasn’t going to cover anything; several years back I’d dropped comprehensive coverage. But I wasn’t going to give up. We’d been through too much together.

I dried the car out the best I could. A jumpstart attempt failed. AAA didn’t want to pick up the car and my mechanic didn’t want to accept it. (During this drawn-out process, I became good friends with Yvonne the tailor. The car had been parked outside her shop during Sandy and seeing my WFMU bumper sticker, Yvonne knew I was a kindred spirit. She kindly let me sit inside during the two chilly days while I waited for AAA to come. I also promised to stay in touch with Luis the helpful AAA driver, who is going back to school to become a social studies teacher.) Finally the mechanic agreed to take a look but said there was a 75% chance it couldn’t be salvaged.

I nervously waited for a week. I would have to get down to Maryland somehow for Thanksgiving. My sister was flying in from Colorado and I’d given my word. Started to research alternate means of transport. But then the mechanic called and said he might be able to get it going. First I had to approve some parts: starter motor. Computer. (My 1991 car, without power anything, had a “computer”?) And no guarantees. I gave him the OK; what else could I do?

Time was running out, but the day before Thanksgiving the mechanic said the car was ready. I walked to the garage with my packed bag. There was still condensation on the inside of the windows, a sad common trait of the flooded cars all over Hoboken. I put a plastic garbage bag on the driver’s seat because it was still very wet. And… it started. My car was back. My buddy. The steering was stiff initially and the brakes were vibrating but the more I drove, the better it felt.

The cigarette lighter had gotten pretty rusty post-Sandy but with a little wiggle the GPS cord plugged in just fine. As I drove, I checked for additional damage. The radio mostly worked; that was certainly important. I reprogrammed the preset stations; five of the six buttons seemed to be functioning. Bit of panic as the sun began to set on 95 South and I realized I probably should’ve tested the headlights before the multi-hour drive. But they worked too. The seatbelt indicator was misbehaving but that wasn’t a big deal. Drying the seatbelts, however, was tricky—I extended them as far as possible while turning on the heater full blast. The heater worked; the air conditioning did not. (Replacing the A/C compressor would cost hundreds; that was a decision I could put off till the late spring. And the mechanic thought it might also soon be time for yet another timing belt.)

I stopped in Delaware for gas. (It’s always fun for us Jersey people to pump our own gas in different states, as we’re not allowed to at home.) I started up the car again except… it wouldn’t start. I loudly and repeatedly uttered a favorite obscenity, while simultaneously getting very antsy about the cars behind me at the pumps who would likely soon want to move forward. I was panicking—do I make my dad drive all this way to pick me up?—but on another attempt the Corolla roared to life. Ok, good fella. We cool? We’re cool. I stroked the top of the dashboard as I had a million times before.

Made it to the folks’ on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, but now I was nervous about getting the car started. Still, it got me around fine those few days (even if I had to wipe off the interior condensation in the morning and evening). And sometimes it took a couple of tries to start. That was a little demoralizing, because for 21 years, it had always started just fine. The day after Thanksgiving I left the Corolla at a local car wash for “interior detailing.” I’d seen the term “auto detailing” my whole life but had no idea what it meant until now. Basically, it would entail a very thorough interior cleaning which would also involve as much drying as possible.

When I picked the car up the next day, it looked good. Better than it had looked in many years. And no condensation! The car wash guy said he hadn’t been able to totally dry it, and that I might want to try… kitty litter. Very absorbent, you know. So I drove back to New Jersey (still sitting on my trash bag), went directly to Target, and purchased a giant jug of cat litter—the clumping variety. I poured it all over the Corolla’s carpet. That bummed me out; the carpet had been so clean and now I was purposely ruining it just five hours later. Well, if it would soak up the nasty flood water, then I guess it was an acceptable tradeoff.

A few days later, I scooped out as much kitty litter as I could. There were definitely some clumps and a lot of damp litter. That litter had admirably tried to do its job, but the carpet was still pretty damp. Then there was the new bulb I had bought for the overhead light, which was also not working. Opening the door at night, the car seemed that much more dead without the light’s welcoming glow. But seeing how much storm damage had happened to my local auto-parts store depressed me even further. And then the new bulb didn’t do any good. In classic adding-insult-to-injury fashion, while kneeling on the front seat to change the bulb, my pants leg got soaked. I was not a happy fellow. Back in the apartment I emailed my new Sandy volunteer buddy Anthony, a student at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The overhead light seemed like such a basic set-up—switch, wire, bulb—did he maybe have an electrical-engineer pal who could take a look at it? Anthony said he’d ask around or come by himself. Real nice kid.

Thursday, a week after Thanksgiving, I drove to Garwood, New Jersey, for a Sandy fundraiser concert. I’d never even heard of Garwood; good thing the GPS was working. Afterwards, Jim, the event’s organizer, asked for a ride home to Weehawken. I was embarrassed of the condensation, the kitty-litter residue, and the plastic bags on the seats. Maybe the car wouldn’t even start. But, once again answering the call of duty, the Corolla got him home safely.

The next night, I drove down to Sean’s place in central Jersey. We were going to see the Monkees in New Brunswick. We had seen them once before, at Great Adventure way back in 1986, just a couple of months after we’d gotten our drivers licenses. (Sean and I were born just a few days apart.) It was an extremely fun show, this time with Mike Nesmith in the band instead of the late Davy Jones. And later that night, the car got me home just fine. Exit 9 to 14C: a route I’d driven so many times, it was second nature.

I parked just up the street from my building, on a Tuesday-morning street-cleaning side. That following Monday, I was venturing into Manhattan for the first time since the storm. It had been five weeks already. The Hoboken PATH train station was closed due to storm damage, so I’d have to walk to Jersey City to catch a train there. (Now 10 weeks since Sandy, the trains still aren’t back to normal.) But I really needed a haircut, so I made the extra effort. Before I left, I thought I might as well move the car to an already-cleaned Monday side, giving me an entire week of parking if I needed it.

The car wouldn’t start.

OK, OK, stay calm. This was the “new normal.” I tried again. Nothing. Things were lighting up on the dashboard, so it wasn’t the battery. Tried again. And again. And again. Come on, buddy. You’re my buddy. Start. Please start.

It would not start.

OK, I would try again later when I got home from the city. But in my heart I kind of knew that it was over. I wouldn’t pay for another repair attempt. What’s that saying? “Throwing good money after bad”? Before I got out of the car, I opened the glove compartment and pulled out Sean’s mix tape that had been in there since 1994. I slipped the cassette into my backpack and walked away.

The car didn’t start when I got back and I knew what I had to do. I went to the website of the NPR program Car Talk. I’m not sure when I first started listening to that radio show. I know my friend Sarah always sang their praises: Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers, a.k.a. Tom and Ray Magliozzi. I definitely remember a Sunday morning in 1996, driving around Cedar Rapids, Iowa in a rental car, heading to the day-after brunch/picnic for my pal Brian’s wedding. And on the radio, these two hilarious New England guys were talking about cars.

For quite a while I listened every week. This October, the show had quietly ceased producing new episodes after 35 years. But I knew they sponsored a vehicle donation program, and imagined it was still up and running. There was also 1-877-KARS-4-KIDS, which had tried to brainwash me over the years with their maddening radio jingle. But I genuinely trusted Click and Clack. They seemed like real good guys. On the website I made sure that they’d accept a car in any condition. A short note there from Tom and Ray brought tears to my eyes:

Is your old heap ready to go? It has been good to you, so why not let it do one more good thing and benefit New York Public Radio?

My car had been good to me. Really, really good. And I liked that idea a whole lot, of it doing one more good thing.

I filled out the online form right away. They asked for the mileage: It was at 90,199 when the storm hit and post-repair covered about 600 more. That’s definitely not many miles for a 21-year-old car; I’m sure it still had some life in it. I also needed to mail them the car’s title. Jeez, where did I put that title in 1991? It wasn’t among the damp old maps and directions in the glovebox. But the second place I look yielded better results. There it was, in my little filing cabinet, in a folder labeled “Important.” Next, I had to tape signs in the front and back windows on which I’d written, “PLEASE DON’T TICKET; TOW TRUCK IS COMING.”

A few days later, I got a call from ProTech Dispatch in Philadelphia, scheduling a pick-up for the following Thursday morning. They said to clear out all my personal belongings. Threw nearly everything away: the folding chairs and other camping gear, the snow shovel and various ice scrapers. The Club. I had locked The Club on the steering wheel for years after anyone would have any interest in stealing the car. Force of habit. Duct tape, replacement bulbs, flashlight, goofy sunglasses, and other relics from the glove compartment. I peeled off the EZ-Pass unit and then with much effort, WD-40, and a borrowed screwdriver, removed the license plates. They were the old yellow-on-blue style, which I had gotten in their final year of issue.

Early in the morning on December 13, 2012, the ProTech truck came to take away my car. The guy drove all the way from Philly. The Corolla would like that; we’d been there plenty of times. As the driver loaded my car onto his flatbed, he stopped to pull out a pocket knife. Chains were supposed to latch into holes in the car’s underside. He explained that when the car is new, there are rubber grommets over those holes. On my car, the rubber was still intact.

As he lifted my car into place—my first car, my only car—I patted it one last time. I shook the guy’s hand and he climbed into his driver’s seat. He waited till some cars passed, took a left onto 6th Street, and I got my last glimpse of my beloved car.

It was sad but I was OK. We’d had an awful lot of good times together, that car and me. And, I’m not real spiritual or anything, but the end was kind of cool. Getting me to Thanksgiving, getting me to Sean’s. It was almost like the car wanted to make one last drive to Maryland, where we’d met when it was just a baby. And one final trip on the Turnpike, to our buddy Sean, who was there when I learned to drive. I’ll treasure all those memories. And another cool thing about New Jersey: You can keep using your old license plates. So I bought a much newer used Corolla, and when I put those banged-up old plates on, call me corny but I feel like the spirit of my old car is still alive. And we have a lot of miles ahead of us.