Bidding a fond farewell to ‘The Albatross’

When I was 19, I dropped out of college. I had landed a job at the local record store. Within a year I was the manager of the store and by the end of the following year I had borrowed a pile of money and joined the two owners as a full partner. I loved music, and had decided to make my passion into my life’s work.

In the end, my passion for music was not enough to sustain the business. Now I say, “I used to run a non-profit. It wasn’t supposed to be a non-profit, but that’s how I ran it.” I simply didn’t care as much for the business as I did for the music.

In 1988 we closed the store and I began to chip away at tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Here I was, 25 years old, on the verge of bankruptcy, with a high school education, and feeling as bad about myself as I ever thought I could. Help came from the government: I got a very large tax return. It turns out that if you lose everything the IRS will give some of it back to you if you have a good accountant.

I needed a car and I bought a 1966 Mustang that needed a lot of work. I set out, along with my dad, to restore that Mustang, doing most of the work ourselves in his garage.

This was a good project for a couple reasons. First, it helped to restore in me a sense of self that I lost during my non-profit days. Second, it gave my dad and I a chance to reconnect in my adulthood. We spent many hours in his garage working on that car, working on our relationship, and, it turns out, working on me.

That restored car became my daily driver for the next eight years. I drove it to my first day of teaching in Paradise, coming fullcircle from the loss of one dream to the precipice of the next. Every time I took the Mustang out for a drive, I thought of my dad, and the transformation — both in the car and in us.

One day my car ground to a halt. 100,000 miles since the rebuild, and nearly 250,000 miles since it was new, it finally needed a new motor. By then we had a son, with another on the way. I was earning rookie teacher money so I parked the Mustang and bought a different, very used car.

The Mustang continued to sit in the garage. My friend James called it “The Albatross.” In the meantime, my dad died after a battle with cancer and I felt I had to hang onto the Mustang for his sake. To me the car had become the physical manifestation of my relationship with my dad and I feared letting it go, lest I forget him and all we had gone through to bring it, and me, back from the brink.

One day, a man drove by and asked how much we wanted for the Mustang. That night, after dinner, I asked everyone in the family what they thought.

My wife didn’t really take a position. Spencer, our oldest — then about 7 — said we should keep it because I had promised him the first ride in it when I fixed it. Erik, then about 4, whispered in my ear, “We should sell it because it’s running out of gas.”

Yes, Erik, the Mustang is running out of gas.

An hour later, the man showed up with a tow truck and took my beloved Mustang away. What I’ve come to understand is that my Mustang was not my relationship with my dad, it was merely a symbol of that relationship. That relationship, and its value, is etched into my soul and no one, not even a guy with a handful of cash and a tow truck, can take it away.