The Last Ride of Jidosha Cavalier

The first time I saw him, I knew we’d become great friends—I could tell at a glance that he was smart, reliable, and a lot of fun. I hoped we’d stay together for a long time.

Jidosha was a 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier—Okay, I’ve been accused of imparting personalities to my belongings…guilty as charged! I guess I’ve always been a bit of an animist (I name my computers too, always after a computer, cyborg, or robot from a book or movie).

By April of 2004, my old car, Robin was wearing out—getting fuel leaks, suspension problems, and that sort of thing. At the time, I was studying Japanese. More precisely, I was studying Kanji, the flexible and beautiful writing system of Japan. One of my vocabulary words was jidosha which means ‘automobile.’ Each syllable is a word:

Ji (自) = self

Do (動) = move

Sha (車) = vehicle

That sha is the same word that got transliterated as shaw in the word rickshaw (from jinrikisha = ‘man-powered vehicle’).

I called him “Ji” (pronounced exactly like the letter G) for short—that little car got me through my years of delivery driving for diningin.com. Ji saw me through some very good times, and some very bad ones. Sitting in the front seat, between calls for Dining In, I wrote some of my best nodes for Everything2: Platonic Life Partner, Dorothy Dandridge, Jay Ward, Everything Stops for Tea, Tripanosomiasis, Breast Massage, and a half a hundred other of my works got conceived in the front seat of my little white car.

Ji got me safely to Mother’s house in Early, Texas dozens of times to see her, and my dear sister Marilyn. And a few days after Mother died, when the full gravity of missing her hit me, I pulled over at a public park and cried my eyes out in the front seat of that little white car.

But Cavaliers, like people, have a predictable and limited life span. Both of my previous Cavaliers lasted about 150,000 miles (that would be around 240,000 kilometres for you folks that use a sensible system of linear measurement—you know who you are!). As the 150k mark loomed, I got a bit of a sense of foreboding.

Last Wednesday, I went to get my hair cut by my dear friend Cecilia. On the way home, Jidosha started to shake, rattle and roll… “Maybe it’s just a spark plug or a coil or something…” I thought hopefully. “A tuneup will be all Ji needs.”

But it was not meant to be. Ji needed head and valve work—a very pricey proposition. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to pour a thousand or more bucks into a car that isn’t worth that, particularly when you’re saving up for a very expensive vacation, so it was Hobson’s choice.

So, late Sunday night, I drove my poor old steed home from Green’s Automotive. His engine sputtered and gagged for the interminable mile to our house.

Why is it that the French have such cool words to describe emotional states? Tristesse is usually translated as “pain,” “sadness,” or “melancholy,” but to my understanding, it is a deep, aching sadness…a very profound, empty feeling. Driving home in my old car brought all those old memories back, the good times and the bad…The last ride of Jidosha Cavilier was a mile of tristesse.

I picked up his replacement today, a blue Toyota Corolla. Older, but less worn than Jidosha. It sits in the driveway, ready to carry me to work for the next few years. I’ll donate my old white car to charity in the near future.