eVan: 2008

A scene from The Empire Strikes Back, depicting Luke training with Yoda on Dagobah.

Yoda, not the green jedi master, but our old, wrinkled Saab 900. We named it Yoda because receiving it a few years ago, the car was already wizened well beyond it's years. 1991 after all, wasn't that long ago. My sister Carlie drove it, my sister Emily drove it (over an ice patch and rolled it off the side of the rockies), my brother Garrett drove it and then gave it to me when he left for his mission. I immediately changed the oil (knowing Garrett's reputation =) )... finding it dark and thick with sludge... But since Yoda has treated me well. We attribute its's long life mostly to the midichloreans... I'd sneak some in every time we change to oil or fill up the tank. Everything worked fine, just a couple old sores and stiff joints. Nothing duct tape wouldn't fix!

Well, let's be honest, there were a few problems...

Even before the sludge oil my brother left to us, was the countless McDonald's and Chick-fil-a wrappings filling the back and passenger seats and floor! A little mold never hurt anyone, right!

The turn signal lever was actually broken... or loose, you could twist it around twice, kinda like a loose tooth. Therefore I had no turn signal capability, which was scary sometimes, but I'm sure that anyone tailing me was watching carefully for falling parts, the brake lights worked, and after a while I figured it was worth the security to use my hazards every time I turned (even though I could see the confused looks on all the other drivers faces).

The side view mirror, which I guess is still in the Idaho rockies somewhere, was replaced with a hand held mirror, held in place with crumpled wal-mart bags and duct-tape. It was pretty slick though, a very easy way to adjust the mirror, to move it up, just more your head down. And every once in a while the duct tape would actually wear itself loose and flap in the wind like a streamer, which was nice, but it made a noise like blowing on a blade of grass, only much much louder, especially once I hit, oh- anything close to 45 mph.

Once the sunroof of the car was reshaped by impact with the Rocky Mountains, it didn't really open, or close. I forced it closed as far as I could physically manage, which would appear closed, until it rained of course. It's shape was that of a 3 foot wide bowl, so it would collect the spontaneous torrential rains we get here in Georgia, and any right turn would pour it into my lap! While Georgia has been in bad drought the past year or so, when driving Yoda, I didn't mind so much. Another result of the gap in the sunroof is the extreme wind noise Yoda got, after a few drenching experiences and long loud drives, I consulted my nearest duct tape (which I faithfully kept in the glove compartment). Patching the gap around all four sides of the sunroof I was able to minimize the waterfall and even reduce the noise!

Of course, the noise didn't matter too much, it never disturbed any conversations, because no one could ever ride with me, the passenger seatbelt refused to work and more annoying was the seat actually leaned about 10 degrees to the center and back of the car.

Reducing the noise was good though, because then I could hear the static in the radio better, having a damaged antenna does have it's perks. I could hear crystal clear static in the left rear speaker, which was the only one that actually worked most of the time. The others would come and go as they pleased.
Yoda had a certain musty smell, probably because all the upholstery in the ceiling sagged so much I finally ripped it all out. A small fuzzy layer remained though, constantly smelling. But every time I filled the tank the car smelled like gasoline for a few days, so I never had to suffer long from the musty smells.

We all knew it wasn't a matter of if but more a matter of when. We discussed regularly what we thought it would that did him in. We hoped it wouldn't be any belts, water pump, starter, fuel pump... because we'd replaced all that! As with any jedi master, there are many moving parts. The actual details about the demise of
Yoda will have to wait for another day.

How about we let you guess! Guess in the comments and we'll get to writing the post once we're back from our beach trip and the story is a bit further back in our memory, and less painful...

The first correct guesser gets... the rest of my midichloreans.

For now we'll just say, rest in peace little friend. We'll always believe.