parting ways

This is the replacement car Nate has driven for much longer than we thought it would even last (since 2007 if you can believe it!).

Thanks to Nate's smarts and his unwillingness to throw out any twisty-ties, the bumper has remained affixed to the car since our last year in St. Louis with those industrial-strength twisty-ties you pry off of children's toys on Christmas morning.

This old thing would speed him to and from the hospital for countless emergencies. It was ugly, wussy, and somewhat clanky. But evidently those qualities in a car don't really matter much when the car can get the job done.

The week before Thanksgiving, this car met its end. A hose blew out and squirted oil all over the engine. The engine fried. The car was dead.

My favorite part of the story is that this occurred on his way to the O. R. There was a very good chance that his patient he was going to operate on passed him standing on the side of the road next to his twisty-tie car with plumes of white smoke emanating from the engine. You'd never think of your surgeon in that situation.

Well think again, because it just might be!
Goodbye car. Thanks for the memories!