Hello Subaru, bye bye Saab

There's a Subaru in our driveway where there have been a Saabs parked for years. We're thrilled to cast away our worries and embrace a new vehicle. Lots of new technology to learn, this one has a built in navigation system and other bells and whistles to explore. A gigantic moon/ sunroof as well, so the car is filled with light.

My first car was an Opel Kadette wagon. Buick dealers in the States imported them and I had my heart set on one it in 1971 after college graduation. My father did not, but I won out and got my first car loan after being was hired for my first teaching job in northern Maine. Van Buren was a border crossing town almost at the most northern part of the state. The Province of New Brunswick, Canada was right across the St. John River

That summer I was working as a camp counselor and had to leave the job in mid August, instead of at the end of the month. School started early in Aroostook Country, earlier than in other New England states due to the potato harvest. School aged children had to help out their farming families during the picking after the harvesting machines went through the fields exposing the potatoes. The spuds were picked in baskets and transferred to large wooden barrels in the fields. It was backbreaking work paid in cash per barrel at the end of the day to adults pickers who went from field to field during the 2-3 weeks of harvest time. Two of my camp friends came up to visit me after camp was finished and tried their hand at the picking work. They were dreaming of riches planning to pick at least a 100 barrels! They did some early picking just before we all drove back to Massachusetts when the schools closed for the harvest vacation. Suzanne, one of my friends was Swedish( her family is part of our family now, I've written many blip journal about them)so somehow she(S) and BB my other pal, managed to get hired at a farm owned by Swedish Americans. The farmers were thrilled to have someone from their ancestral homeland picking, so they got some 'special treatment', like lunch inside. Suzanne just had clogs, no socks, the farmer lent them both gloves. The work was backbreaking and they spent their riches(ha) on booze to deaden the pain at the end of the day. I drove to pick them up after my teaching day was over. I think I picked 3 potatoes and quickly got the picture, it was a hard job even if we were all well under 24!

My white Opel was christened, Ice Bear by S(theblond). She made up fantastic tales ( entirely alcohol enhanced) about ice bears/polar bears walking the streets of Sweden hunting for bananas, pulling folks in rickshaws. Sounds stupid now, but it cracked us up then! You can see a plastic banana hanging from my rear view Opel window in the old photo of BB & me in front of my Van Buren apartment. I guess the hanging banana was an incentive for the Opel to keep going in snow like this. My now 60 year old brother was just a teenager on his visit to me during one of his school vacations, he could not believe the high drifts we had along all the roads.

T and I decided last night to call the Subaru Ice Bear II.  We hope she brings as much satisfaction and fun as my original white car. T's first car, a VW convertible was white as well. I traded Ice Bear for my first Saab, a 99 in 1973 after two winters of ice and mountains of snow in VB, when I moved back home for a new teaching job in Massachusetts. About a year after I traded the first Ice Bear I saw it in a parking lot in Cambridge. It had an S sticker on the back, one that I had brought home in 1972 after a two month vacation in Sweden.  I recognized the car immediately. I wrote a note and left it under the windshield wiper wishing them continued good time in that great little car that was so dependable and part of so much fun. 

For the Record,
This day came in cold and sunny. We seem to be on the far northern edge of the snow that is going to cripple parts of the eastern seaboard, a small amount predicted here, phew!

All hands improving.