As a woman born in the ’60s, I am of an age where I remember electric windows in cars as an indication of prestige, progression, coolness.
I also recall having an AM and FM radio as the height of a modern vehicle. And if you had an eight-track tape deck? You were on fire.
So today, dear Budget Voguers, I mourn the death of a family member: My 2004 VW Passat wagon went by the wayside, literally and figuratively.
While one should not love something that cannot love you back, in a sense, I feel that vehicle did. She had a sunroof, a manual transmission, both a tape and CD player and, well, electric windows. She also had around 230,000 miles on her, a rip in the front seat and oatmeal embedded in the carpets.
I tend to be rough on cars, and when my children were little, we could have survived for decades on what was under their car seats. In a word, I am a slob.
Alas, I am also a savvy consumer. When I mentioned the newfangled electric windows and radios, I am harking back to a simpler time of car purchases. And now that I am in the middle of searching for a new car, I am astounded by the accessories, the prices, the details.
I simply want point A to point B. I do not need a remote start, a heated steering wheel, a screen the size of a refrigerator on my dashboard. I need simple — ideally a manual transmission, a sunroof if possible, point A to point B.
If you’ve been reading Budget Vogue for a while, you may recall my cars of years ago. I drove Volvo 240s for years, station wagon tanks that were the epitome of simple — no car payments, easy repairs, room enough for seven when we installed a seat in the way way back.
Susan's pup will probably get used to the power windows in their new ride.
SUSAN DROMEY HEETER
While they did have electric windows, they didn’t often work. And, well, not everything did. I recall traveling down to my hometown of Springfield, Mass., for a family party. My 10-year-old daughter joined me on the jaunt and we had no air conditioning on a 98 degree day. We simply put the windows down (they worked that day) and arrived with windswept hair. Easy.
But nostalgia only works for so long. It is time to move on and accept that cars, like life, have changed, upgraded, become rolling computers, rapid vehicles of way more than simple transportation. Cars, like phones, have become much, much more.
And while this luddite Budget Vogue fashionista craves a roll-down window, a clutch, a car with no beeps, no Wi-Fi, it may just be that I’ll have to succumb to the here and now, accept that any car with simple tools has gone the way of a paper map, television antennas, typewriters.
I must accept the progression of automobiles and, who knows? Perhaps I’ll enjoy a heated steering wheel and a remote start. The least I can do is try.
Susan Dromey Heeter writes and teaches on the Seacoast. Reach her at dromeheet@comcast.net.
