By David Trinko
The Lima News
I’m going to miss driving around town in that high-mileage sports utility vehicle.
I’d driven it for about five years all over the place, short trips and long ones, alone and with some of my favorite people. While my wife and I share our cars, I always considered it mine.
It wasn’t the fanciest car in the world. It wasn’t loaded with the most gizmos. But it got the job done, and it was reliable. I suppose in some ways, that car reflected the way I thought about myself.
No more, though. Now it unofficially belongs to my 16-year-old daughter, who earned both her license recently and the right to zip around in that four-door wonder.
She and I have spent plenty of hours together in that rolling fortress. For a few seasons, it was taking her to sports practices and tournaments. We always had good conversations during those trips, in between her selections of songs roaring over that so-so Bluetooth connection on the radio.
It took us to a lot of youth softball practices too, when sometimes I’d leave the back seat down for more room for balls and bats. While her younger sister was on the team, that same daughter often came along to help coach and became a favorite of the kids.
For the past six months, the power shifted in that vehicle. I moved from the driver’s side to the passenger’s seat once she got her driving permit. I taught her how to drive in that vehicle, knowing one day it would be hers.
We went to her various jobs in there, with her hopping out and me usually driving elsewhere while she worked. I’d return to pick her up, head out the driver’s door and return to the seat once designated for my “passenger princess.”
My wife took her and the car to take the driver’s test recently. Her mother shared the devious look in my daughter’s eye when she headed back to the car after successfully earning her driver’s license, when she declared the car “is mine now” and started cackling.
Indeed it is hers now. I kept it pretty spartan when I drove it, but now it has changes of clothes, snacks and flowery smelling air fresheners in it. She certainly gave it a “glow up.”
I never thought I’d be so sentimental about a car, but I really miss those fun times in there.
For whatever reason, this same daughter seemed to spend the most time in there with me. It will always bring a smile to my face to think about turning to her and randomly offering her a fist-bump, this dad’s shortcut for saying, “I want you to be happy. I’m proud of you. I love you.”
I just hope sometimes when my girl drives around in that SUV, she looks over at the passenger seat and thinks about the fun times she and her dad had in it together.
Yeah, I’m going to miss that car.
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See past columns by David Trinko at LimaOhio.com/tag/trinko.
David Trinko is editor of The Lima News. Reach him at 567-242-0467, by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @Lima_Trinko.
