let's not forget my first

Bruce was the second car I owned. We bought her in April 2005 when Dave took a job that required some travel. When I graduated from college in 98, I took over the rights to Frau Blue, my mom's matronly powder blue 1989 Chevy Celebrity. She had four doors, chrome bumpers, and was proudly constructed of sweat, love, and Detroit steel but handled with the staunch precision of fine German engineering. While Miss Bruce was a bit more high tech, she was made of silver (don't you dare say grey or you might get slapped) Plexiglas and wasabi. You felt safe in Blue. She was the kind of girl who took pride in her brawn. She held you to her ample bosom while she plowed through a storm, and made you schnitzel and apple streudel when you were down. She didn't mind if you let the Thompson Twins loop on the tape deck or rolled the windows down by hand on a nice day, one by one while you were at red lights.

When our crappy mayor was elected, he decided that he was going to clean the Philadelphia streets by towing 1000 abandoned cars per day for forty days. As citizens, all we had to do was call a number to report a car and it was towed, no questions asked. It's a great way to meet that goal. If your car was mistakenly towed, you just had to go to the tow yard with proof of registration and ownership and you'd get your car back and all fines would be dropped.

This sounds good in theory, I guess. Unfortunately the guys with the tow trucks were independent contractors and they weren't always honest about where they were taking the cars once the City ordered them towed. In April of '99 Frau Blue was reported abandoned by an old man on our street who was angry that we parked in front of his house from time to time. The police said she was towed to Penrose Avenue, but the boys at the yard never saw her.

Sometimes when I'm driving down a quiet road on a clear night I look to the stars and I know she is up there, smiling down at me and keeping me safe.