Thursday October 17, 2024
Memorial of Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Prius
With all wisdom and understanding, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, bringing unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Rarely if ever can I remember wanting a picture of the guy who sold me something, in this case a car. Meet our new friend Ben.
We haven’t bought a brand new car ever in our marriage, after all, and that’s been 45 years. The only new car in either of our lives was the 1979 red Datsun 210 Margaret bought a few months before we wed. That car took us 200,000 miles, from Lincoln where we too began our marriage, and ending in Urbana, where we live now (sometimes). I took a photo of the odometer on that fateful 200,000 mile day.
Of course many of us never have a new car. Or one, sometime along the way maybe. But my grandpa “traded” for a new car every two years. I heard about someone trading every six months, just to keep the new car feel. We ourselves thought we wanted a different color car, but the one we have as of October 15 (a bluish gray) is growing on us already.
So here’s the story. On September 23 in north Austin we were barely sideswiped by another car which swerved a tiny bit to avoid hitting the car stopping suddenly in front of her. We heard the crunch of metal and pulled over. The young lady in the other car pulled up beside us. Through the window, I saw her say, “I’m so sorry!”
As these things go, this was nearly a non-event. No police were called; we exchanged insurances (both full coverage policies), and when I called our insurance company and sent them pictures our claims agent Layne told me since it was not “our fault,” this accident would not be reflected on our policy.
Great! I arranged for the car to be examined and repaired in Urbana a few weeks later, since we were spending much of October there. I dropped off the car and the next day Country Companies emailed me with the conclusion that the car would have to be totaled.
Well, that didn’t sound right. But when I talked to the collision experts at the body shop, they said the front end of the car was pushed back four inches and everything inside needed to be repaired. The car was worth about $8300, and the estimate was $9300. Later they showed me how it looked with the fenders off and it did look a little horrible, even if I had just driven it from Austin to Illinois with no difficulties whatsoever.
Long story short, we were given a rental car, took a trip to Evansville in it, and then the day we got back found a 2024 Prius (miracle!) available in Urbana. I’m a little nervous about driving it, because when there are no scratches I’d like to keep it that way, but … forget it. Get a little ding and get used to having a slightly less than new car sooner rather than later. I’ll try.
I have been remembering the adventures our white Prius took us into and through. This new one is our third Prius, and until now we’ve driven hundreds of thousands of miles with virtually no repairs, all over the country.
We found our 2015 white Prius at the Ford dealer’s lot in Lincoln, Illinois, which was fun for me. Marc and I picked it up on October 9, 2017, Margaret’s birthday. Back home Marc bought our first Prius (he’s now on his second), and we began breaking in our second.
Where has that car been? I took pictures of it everywhere. It has traveled most of Route 66. It crossed the desert highways north to Taos in New Mexico, and through the Ozark forests of Arkansas and Missouri. When Jasper was born in 2019 it traveled through the Piney Woods of Arkansas and East Texas, through the TOWN of Jasper where I took pictures of every sign that read “WELCOME TO JASPER!”
Our white Prius, that traveling chariot, has been south to San Antonio, further south to Presidio and Mexico, through Judge Roy Bean’s territory around Langtry, Texas and into Big Bend National Park. It has taken us west through the Texas Hill Country, to Fredericksburg and Emerald Mountain and Kerrville and, notably, down sand roads into the canyon of the Frio River to Laity Lodge and the HEB Foundation Camp near Leakey, Texas.
It took us down the streets of Comfort, Texas too, where nineteenth century German philosophers and pioneers established an idealistic communal way of life eventually shattered by conflict during the Civil War. That car drove the roads down into the Palo Alto Canyon, site of Comanche winter camps until the tribe was routed out and destroyed by the US Army while above them on the Texas Panhandle the buffalo herds were being decimated and destroyed at the same time.
Our white Prius traveled over and over into Turkey Run State Park and Rockville, Indiana. Every couple of weeks we drove to Arcola and Amish Country for milk, eggs, and bargains at Country Salvage. We made trips to Chicago and Peoria, Indianapolis and St. Louis, Lake Lulu, Madison and Milwaukee. Our wonderful car traveled at times across icy roads and sand hills (not often) in Michigan and Wisconsin, through tunnels in the Rockies and Appalachian Mountains, and it traveled along most of the Natchez Trace Parkway from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, then took us back to Nashville several times for world conferences of the American Association of Christian Counselors.
This Prius rode Texas State ferries from Galveston across the bay and into Port Aransas several times on the way to the Gulf of Mexico and its clean white beaches. Seagulls welcomed our white car, and us, and we felt the salty air in our mouths. Can you hear those seagulls calling?
Just a year ago Marc and I rode in our white Prius to Niagara Falls, through the brilliant fields of trees in Vermont and New Hampshire, up the shores of Maine and then across the border into New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, all the way to the tip of Cape Breton peninsula. It took us across an eleven mile bridge to Prince Edward Island, and we listened to Anne of Green Gables all the way. Back in the United States, we heard Walter Isaacson describe the cruel and unusual life of Elon Musk.
Home again from Canada, our car rested. It waited for its next destination, always ready to go. It’s been everywhere, man. And since we moved to Austin in November of 2020, our white Prius has traveled those highways from Urbana through Texarkana and Little Rock to Jollyville Road in Austin …  30 round trip times. Count them. Yep. Thirty.
Still, no one expected us to part with this car for another several years. 182,500 miles just wasn’t anything. It was time for another oil change. The car was ready for a nice warm bath. Three weeks before our side-swipe we put on sweet new tires, nicer than we’ve bought before, and the car was perfectly aligned. We heard stories from other Toyota owners who put 300,000 or more miles on their cars. Our salesman Ben yesterday told us he took a picture of a Prius odometer with 680,000 miles on it. And still going. They go everywhere, man.
So. Now we begin breaking in another Prius, one that’s full of sweet touches, like a double sunroof and a 12 inch map and music screen, and buttons for everything. Toyota “Connect” lets us start the car from inside our apartment and use a digital key when we need to. Sirius XM carries the Bears football games this fall. Removable rubber mats protect the floors. The steering wheel cover feels like black silk.
The engine compartment is packed with shiny, essential pieces of a hybrid system that gives us 52 miles per gallon. Four-wheel drive will pull us through thick and thin, and more than twice as many horsepower as our last Prius might make this one … kind of fun to drive.
If you made it through all of this joyful remembrance, leavened with only slight devotional intent, well, there’s just one more thing.
This Prius, nor the last one neither, ever claimed to be the One Thing. A car is a car is a car is a car. It will not get us to heaven, not even close. But God’s graciousness in granting us this chariot, this Prius, on the very day we needed it brings us joy and joy and gratitude and thankfulness and peace.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.
 (Ephesians 1, Psalm 98, John 14, Luke 11)
 (posted at www.davesandel.net)
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