The first material good that I have loved was my Schwinn LeTour 10 speed bicycle when I was a teenager. My parents would buy me a bike, but not a good one. If I wanted a good one, I'd have to buy it myself. So I saved up my allowance and made money shoveling snow etc. After saving for about a year, I had a bike that I loved and I went everywhere with it. From my home town of Woonsocket, I'd bike into Providence (about 30 miles) just to go to my favorite comic book shop. I'd bike to school in the Spring and Fall and while living in the southern Rhode Island during the summer, I'd bike to the beach. The bike was my lifeblood. It got me everywhere. In my senior year of high school, when the bike was stolen out of my backyard, I was crushed. I learned quickly not to love any material goods because of how easily they could be taken away.
If it wasn't for my wife, I'd never buy anything new. Perhaps it is my working class background, other than my lap top, I wouldn't buy anything I could used and keep it until it died. It wasn't until 2004 that we bought a new car off the lot. I had always bought used cars and had to have them towed to the junk yard when I was done with them. My wife convinced me to buy new after we lived in Vermont for a few years because here in the north country, you need a good car. You can't do much without one. Here is where Timmy comes in. Timmy was our 2004 Toyota Matrix. I say "was" because we traded him in on Friday and got $2,000.00 as a trade in for our new 2014 Prius V. I did not break down and cry when we left him, but I came close; I felt weepy. Why? It is probably because of the time that I spent in him and not so much as a love for the actual product. Like when I lost my bike, the saying good bye to the car, was an end to an era. It is the loving of the product (like one does with jewelry) but what a product added to your life, the independence and opportunity, not the product.
We needed all-wheel drive and a car big enough to carry two or three dogs. We had a very good experience with an old used red Toyota Corolla (aka Ruby) so we went with the Matrix. Ten years brought us 172,440 miles with relatively no problems. We drove him as far south as Florida with our dog Rex when he was a pup. He learned to get excited when he saw the car or heard its engine. We drove to Chicago, Boston and Montreal many times and further into Canada (westward to Ottawa, Ontario and northward to Quebec City, Quebec). In 2009, Timmy became our old car when we bought our second Matrix, Dot. We referred to them collectively as the Matrices. Timmy was relegated to lugging the dogs or kayaks. Since I telecommute, he spent most of the day in our yard or garage awaiting my lunch time errands.
The fact that we traded the car in and didn't deliver it to a junk yard is pleasing to me because we know someone else will get to use him. We move on. Let me introduce you to Luther:
