The Final Day With My Car

Since March 2001 I have owned the same black 1989 Buick Regal Custom. It started off looking exactly what you’d think a single owner Buick from 1989 would look like:

After a lot of work (and convincing my dad to help me) at the ripe age of 17 I had turned it into this:

Learning to paint the car, how to wax and care for a car, as well as how to fix the various amounts of things that went wrong with it in the first year was a bit overwhelming. To me though, I was living in a new city with very few friends and nothing to do. I wasn’t a fan of Lexington, OH but the one thing it did have, was plenty of roads to travel. I spent that time and until I eventually moved, learning every facet of my car. I eventually named it “The Osiris” after the Egyptian god of the underworld/dead. I thought it was a cool name and after all the problems I had with it, it came back from the dead a few times.

Times became tough for me though. I lived in downtown Columbus while I was attending the Columbus College of Art and Design. There, very few people cared about their cars like I did… so sadly it was treated quite poorly by them (the citizens of Columbus, I’m looking at you!). I had a brick thrown through the window, car door dings, scrapes and more. It was hard for me to let go of what it once was. Then I moved home and it died on me again. I couldn’t figure out the problem and bought a ‘78 Chevy Impala to get by from an ex-girlfriend’s uncle. After a few months I met a friend who needed a car and since I technically had two, I sold the Impala for enough money to fix The Osiris.  Luckily, with the money and time I was able to bring it back to life yet again.

I never managed to return it to it’s original state from that point forward. Since I came to Kent I sparingly need a car so I often left it in the parking lot at my apartment. Things recently got worse when the battery died and a few weeks later the power steering pump blew in the middle of a trip (for the second time). While on a breakfast date the driver side door handle broke off, where the gas tank is welded in the middle is leaking (meaning I can’t put more than 6 gallons of gas in it at a time) and the power window motors are so slow and old that it would be faster if there was a hand crank for them… I started to realize it might be time to move on. The rims I bought for it now sit on the back porch at my parents house, the subwoofers I had installed have been passed on to a new owner and the stereo transfered to a different car. This had all accumulated in August of 2008 when I decided I needed to do something about it.

But I couldn’t. I’m driving a car that is technically my dad’s for the time being. The Osiris sits in the parking lot (occasionally with a flat tire). I couldn’t just sell it to a junk yard, all things considered, it’s still in great shape. A few hundred bucks (that I don’t have) and it’d be a great car for anyone. It just isn’t easy to sell it in a college town where people either already have a beater of their own, have a stupidly nice car or don’t own a car at all. Recently though, I found someone to buy it from me. So tomorrow The Osiris switches hands to someone who has told me that they are going to fix it up and give it the repairs it needs. I feel a lot better. Even though I sold it for dirty cheap, I think I’ll be happier knowing that it is going to be in good hands.

Here are some photos I took:

More here at Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsthejameson/sets/72157615119601832/