On November 11th, I turned 60 and of course I began to reflect on family, faith, finances, frictions, my long-term association with the Sierra Club, and for some reasons… cars.
Not any cars, just all the specific cars and other vehicles I have driven or ridden in through my now somewhat longish life. These vehicles mark key events in my life and of course have wider implications to how we move and our planet’s long-term health. I have also for some reason been involved in quite a few car accidents, though by the Grace of God seem to walk out unscathed. If not the cars.
It all started back in England where I lived my first three years and no I couldn’t tell you what my dad and mom drove me around in, but I do know once we moved to Syracuse New York, we only owned US-made cars for many years! Why? Well as academics, my parents didn’t have much money and it was my paternal grandfather and maternal grandfather who basically took the decision that my family would only buy US-made cars. I mean they paid for the cars so it made sense.
We were a one-car family and my dad’s smoke-filled car of choice was a two-toned, wood-paneled station-wagon - the old 1972 Chrysler Town & Country model if memory serves, though at some point I think we had a similar sized Oldsmobile. Was it called the cruiser? My memory is mainly sitting in the very back row - which faced toward the back window - usually no seatbelts, as we leaned back with a buddy pretending we were in a spaceship watching the clear cold Syracuse night sky as my dad drove around, smoking continually.
In 1975 we spent a year in Sevilla Spain where we bought or rented a white Citroen Ami roundish car - a French Car - which when you turned it on would ascend as if it were on springs - before jetting off. It was very cool to live in Spain, fall in love …with soccer and drive around in a French futuristic looking white car.
Upon our return to Syracuse, we remained a one-car luxury station wagon family until my parents started to have marital issues, and there was separation and then separate cars and homes. The station wagon was gone – replaced by a Subaru DL for my dad and a Buick LeSabre for my mom. In the summer before my senior year of High School, I would learn to drive the Subaru DL with my dad as my mom took a job a couple hours away teaching Spanish in SUNY-Oneonta. The subaru was not nearly as cool to drive around town as some of the cool kids in high school, one of whom had a bright blue mustang! I really did want to drive a Mustang! But I digress maybe.
Once high school ended, I was off to college at Princeton University, dropped off in my dad’s subaru and I basically didn’t drive again for a bit until my senior year, when my mom finally purchased a non-US car -a new white 1986 Toyota Camry - and lent me the green Buick LeSabre. In between my father would unexpectedly pass away from a sudden bout with pancreatic cancer, probably not helped by smoking and drinking way too much. It was very traumatic and I believe a colleague of his ended up with his Subaru.
I would drive the green LeSabre up to New York City or Hoboken to see alternative rock bands - I remember in particular seeing the Feelies and the Replacements - but eventually gave it to my brother when I graduated - he was moving to grad school in Boston. I believe he kept it for a long time.
For the next six years I didn’t own a car or drive much at all as I relied on public transportation, my feet or a bicycle. First, I moved to NYC, working in journalism for a bit, before heading to Central America to travel with buddies and begin living in Costa Rica for about 18 months, working for an English-language newspaper called the Tico Times. I went everywhere by bus or even on occasion hitch-hiking. I traveled a lot, went to many beaches, and took many late buses through the San Jose streets as I courted my then girlfriend, now wife, Rosa Maria.
Soon after I headed to Austin, Texas to begin my graduate school days at UT-Austin in both Latin American Studies and later Community and Regional Planning. I rented homes near the UT-Campus with other grad students, hitched rides and took lots of buses in Central Austin. I wasn’t worried about a vehicle at that point in my life and frankly couldn’t have afforded it.
Two years later Rosa Maria joined me in Austin on a student visa and we got hitched soon after up at the local county court house. And then, as a married couple, an opportunity for a car arose - my mom was trading in her 1986 Toyota Camry for a 1993 Toyota Camry and would we like her old one instead? Yes, we said and I drove the car from Syracuse to Austin. Fast forward four years and we had spent a year in El Paso, bought a fixer up house in Austin - we are still fixing her up by the way - and were with child and the 1983 Toyota Camry was falling apart. One day after we had replaced the transmission, we were driving right past the St David’s Hospital on 32nd Street, the Camry’s engine caught on fire. Fortunately an orderly ran out from the hospital and put it out. It would not be the first car we would destroy.
In the market for a new car, we chose a sporty new 1996 Honda HRV - I mean it came with a portable picnic table - which would be perfect for our expanded family with baby Oran on his way. Over the next four years we were a one-car family, until baby Marcel arrived a few years later in 2000 and we .. yes … we did … added a mini-van, a 2002 Toyota Sienna, and my wife finally got her license, as she had recently begun working full-time as a preschool teacher. Owning a mini-van was not cool but with two little kids and lots of stuff it was handy.
I drove the Honda HRV all around northern Mexico as I pursued a PhD in geography in the summers, and all those miles and rural roads took their toll. In 2007, the Honda HRV was donated to charity and we purchased a 2006 Ford Escape Hybrid, which used new breaking technology to drive a battery, and was a fun drive. It was the beginning of tipping our toes into more “fuel-efficient” cars.
In 2011 our family was completed when we got a call from the Nicaraguan authorities that our request - from four years earlier - to adopt a baby girl was granted. Isaura was no longer a baby - she was four - but after a somewhat lengthy process - literally nine months - my wife returned to Austin with preschooler Isaura. In 2015, our son Oran graduated from High School and moved into dorms at St Edwards. By the following year he began to “borrow” the Ford Escape - a lot - and I decided to invest in a new car - a Ford CMax - a slightly more advanced hybrid vehicle. Oran kept the Ford Escape.
Then, around 2017, we had another car accident - this time the Toyota Sienna was rear-ended - as Rosa Maria took Isa to elementary school. While the car was still drivable - barely - we took it as a sign and our gas guzzling minivan was replaced with an electric Chrysler Pacifica - a plug-in hybrid. We installed a charger in the back of the house.
We didn’t drive it too long but in 2019, we did drive our second son Marcel to California in the Pacifica to go to college in Santa Cruz. Soon after, my wife was involved in yet another accident and the Pacifica was no more. She was fine but decided the plug-in hybrid was no more and went back to a “regular” hybrid, this time a Toyota Highlander.
In 2020, it was Covid time, and Marcel returned from college and went to school “on-line” for two semesters. Finally in early 2021 he returned and took the Ford CMax, and his new dog Tobi with him. I took it as a sign and began to lease an all-electric Nissan Leaf, which I loved – except I crashed it about a year later. Yes, driving to San Antonio for a CPS Energy Board meeting, I was met by a heavy rainstorm and coming off of I-35 crashed into another vehicle. It was my fault or the rain’s but the car was totaled. I was fine as was the other driver. And yes I still made it to the CPS Energy Board meeting.
For a time we were back to being a one-car family - the Toyota Highlander - until my son Oran decided to go to graduate school in NYC, and he lent me his Honda HRV, which I ended up driving in 2023 through 2025, until Oran finished his Master’s and moved to Chicago. We drove it up to Chicago and delivered it back to him.
So…. decision time. Should I purchase or lease a new car? Well on September 29th, I literally had a dream about a baby blue mustang. I woke up and reminded myself that with the Trump Administration in power, the EV tax incentives were going away as part of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill. So, on September 30th, I decided I still liked those Ford Mustangs, only in the form of an electric vehicle - the Mach-E.
After a few phone calls, we walked into a Ford dealership up in Georgetown, drove one and loved it. That afternoon we were leasing the vehicle and have been driving it ever since. A few weeks later, Ford installed a new free level 2 charger behind our house, and I found out that we could get a $75 rebate plus additional incentives if we allow Austin Energy to control when we charge through their Power Partner program. Information about this “Demand Response” program can be found here. Eventually Austin Energy wants to create a “Vehicle-to-Grid” program where EVs could actually supply emergency charge to the grid.
Most recently I started looking into a state rebate program that I helped get in place through legislation known as the Light-Duty Motor Vehicle Purchase or Lease Incentive Program (LDPLIP), which is part of the Texas Emissions Reduction Plan run by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. If I fill out the paperwork I can get a $2,500 rebate plus whatever tax incentive is still available when I do my annual taxes.
So just for the record, I am finally 60 years old and finally driving a cool car. I am thankful for all my experiences with cars that mark important moments in my life, and now thankful that I have a more sustainable driving option that is not producing direct emissions!
