Maybe 2019 wasn’t so bad after all.
There seems to be a collective sense that it’s better for us to write off the year 2019–put it in the file, put the file in the cabinet, shut the drawer, lock the thing up, turn out the lights, go home. Too much strife, too much difficulty, too much suffering.
I get it. This hasn’t been the easiest year. Aside from the general angst about the state of the world, it’s been a tough year personally. We lost my step-mother, Mary, quite unexpectedly in March. A big part of our family’s life has changed as a result. There have been dark, difficult, aching times since.
Yesterday started at the dentist’s office, continued to the tire shop (new shoes for my MDX, which cost roughly twice as much as my first car), but immediately got better when Kel and I took the kiddos to Hickory for some play time at the mall and Chuck E. Cheese. (Thanks to Mimi and Poppy for the gift cards!) We picked up a couple of things we needed and came home to an unseasonably warm afternoon. The kids played outside in the back yard, Kel worked on supper, and I sat out on the deck, the setting sun warm, the air still.
The Jeep Grand Wagoneer’s design virtually never changed, making it one of the few automobiles that connected entire generations of people.
Kelly and I fell in love with the classic lines of the Grand Wagoneer years before we ever owned one. The familiarity and legacy of the car is renowned; the Wagoneer is often credited as the original luxury SUV. It competed with Range Rovers, offering finer appointments to a truck-based platform more often associated with rugged austerity. In the 1980s, Wagoneers became a staple of WASP culture, the preppy automobile of choice for lawyers and doctors and their private school kids.
These days, the cars are symbols of a vintage lifestyle. Put a Christmas tree on the roof rack and a wreath on the front grill, and you have enough Lands End kitsch that you can probably leave the kids out of your holiday card photo. As a kid, and even as an adult, I always wondered about who drives these things and what kinds of lifestyles they might lead.
So when we spotted an old, woody Wagoneer around town, it was interesting to see not just the car but who was behind the wheel.