Lying on my back, my 9 year old eyes glazed over as I stared out of the rear window of the station wagon. The rumbling of the engine joined Freddy Fender in an odd duet— Freddy singing 'Before the Next Teardrop Falls' as the engine seemed to wail about needing a tune up. The station wagon always needed a tune up, as well as an air freshener. The back seat, and especially the area behind the back seat— which my family creatively named the "Very Back"— was an aromatic blend of McDonald's French fries, baseball equipment and Amway cleaner. I'm not sure when the cleaner was spilled, but I can't remember a time when the Very Back didn't have a bluish stain commemorating my mother's brief stint as an Amway distributor. As I watched through the window of the Very Back, I remember how the streetlights and stars whizzed by. When we stopped at red lights, I remember tracking individual raindrops from their glow in the streetlights to their splats on the window.

Then Freddy would trail off into another song, and I would trail off into 9 year old dreamland: a place with video games, unlimited soda, and basketball hoops that I could slam dunk even though I was 4 feet tall. It was an incredible feeling of security. With my parents in the front seat, taking care of everything, I was blissfully naive. I felt totally safe, even in a car that gave off enough smoke from the hood that drivers in other lanes would honk their horns to make us aware of it. It was a false security, of course. There were no seatbelts in the Very Back, and I hate to think what would've happened had we been in a collision. But those are my best memories of the station wagon.

The worst memories, well... everyone who has driven a station wagon as a teenager knows what I'm talking about. No matter how loud you turn up the car stereo and how many bumper stickers you put on it, a station wagon is a station wagon. In my case, it was a yellow 1978 Ford Fairmont with peeling paint and vinyl seats that seemed to absorb every degree of the scorching heat in Phoenix. By the time I was driving the wagon, it was a perfect candidate for the bumper sticker "What the hell, it runs." Thanks to the family's new drivers— my sister and I— it was known by names like the "Banana Boat" and the "Grocery Getter." Those were two of the more endearing monikers for a car that was an embarrassment for popularity-seeking teenagers to drive. It had an 8-track player, for crying out loud. My only transportation alternative, however, was to walk. So I was behind the wheel of the wagon a lot. What I remember most about the car, given my trickling cash flow as a teenager, was that it got terrible gas mileage. It was like driving a motor home around. I could almost see the fuel gauge sliding toward "E" whenever I pushed the Banana Boat's engine over 25 miles per hour. Eventually, my younger brother, Ben, became the skipper of the Banana Boat. He personalized it with a "Skateboarding is not a crime" sticker, but he didn't make many voyages. Ben's unauthorized nickname was "Crash," so it's easy to guess the Banana Boat's eventual fate. I believe his explanation of the wagon's final collision was, "I sneezed."

Few tears were shed at the passing of the Ford Fairmont. The Freddy Fender 8-track tape was saved from the back seat, and at that point my parents were embracing the exciting musical technology of cassette tapes. The wagon was sent to the scrap heap, leaving behind an oil-stained spot on the street and a thick folder of repair receipts to commemorate its mechanical maladies. That wagon had problems. The engine smoked all the time, and the map light and interior light covers often fell from the roof. One of the seat belts was also kind of screwy, and a handle for rolling down the window came off a couple of times. The transmission also went out during a family vacation. But the final crash was an unfitting end to a car that was a part of the family for so long.

It was the car for trips to the pediatrician, family outings to the movies and trips to baseball and basketball games. It was the car that, before sunrise on Sunday mornings, my dad would drive me around in so I could finish my newspaper route faster. It was the car with the Very Back— a bluish-stained, Eau de Amway fantasyland where there were no seat belts, no air bags, and for a 9 year old, no reason to worry. Life sure is great when you can just lay back and enjoy the view. UB     

Matt Wixon won  Arizona Associated Press writing awards for public service, sports deadline and sports enterprise writing before turning his attention to column writing in 1998. In 1998 and 1999 he was awarded the Arizona AP non-metro top sports columnist awards, along with awards for headline writing and feature writing. In addition to his writing credits in newspapers, Matt has written for Jest, Peel and Main Campus as well. Matt now writes a weekly sports column and a weekly humor column while working at the sports desk of The Dallas Morning News. He is quite proud to proclaim that to this very day— he actually remains tattoo-free.

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