YACK on: Squeaky SUV
Grant Sanders
The late, and greatly missed, Arch McColl told me a few months before he died unexpectedly last year that the creaky front wheels on my 1996 forest green Ford Explorer could suddenly come loose and fall off at any time. Back then, I thought, "Cool! I wonder what that will be like?" I've been waiting for it to happen for over a year and it still has not occurred. No loud snap of metal. No sickening thud. No exciting shower of sparks and grinding of rust against asphalt. Although the ball joints and tie rods around my front end have gotten progressively creakier in the past year, attenuated only by occasional splashes through deep muddy puddles on Barrett Farm Road in the spring, and washboard-rumbly trips from one end of Eel Point Road to the other for the exclusive purpose of kicking up enough talc-like dust to cover the squeaky parts liberally and temporarily so I can drive through town without attracting disdainful looks from wealthy summer people with Porsche Cayenne keys jangling loudly in their pockets.

I'm tired of waiting for the wheels to fall off. And I'm even more tired of watching the digital readout on the gas pump reach $60-and-change to fill my tank every week or two. And I'm even a little tired of all of the creaking and squeaking. So my wife and I have decided to finally get rid of the old beast and drive a low-mileage used compact station wagon - a generous hand-me-down from a relative. This will be the last week I drive said green SUV. So, if you see me, honk or wave. After that, it will go to a nice farm somewhere. At least that's what my wife has told me.

I've read that if you trade in an SUV for an economical compact car, you can save enough energy in a year to power a color TV for 23 years. That's a lot of Mork and Mindy re-runs. So I'm glad to go a little greener - a little more energy aware. A little less hypocritical when I hurl snide epithets at Evil Hummer Owners.

But, at the same time, I'll miss my squeaky old SUV.

I'll miss the odor inside that smells faintly like one of the scallops I caught on my first try at family scalloping several years ago that escaped and crawled under the seats to die.

I'll miss the cool six-CD changer loaded with Pixies, The Ohio Players, Mike Woodard, Ben Folds, The Cure and some illicit secretly (and expertly) recorded bootleg, the name of which conveniently escapes me at the moment.

I'll miss the back end, covered with the following stickers: One Don Allen Ford whale sticker. One Apple Computer logo. One Michael Kopko for Selectman sticker. One Rick Atherton for Selectman sticker. One sticker with the date of George Bush's last day in office - 01.20.09 (which is also my birthday). One Eel Grass sticker (the band). One advancedissue car limitations committee $25 permit with authentic bar code provided free thanks to my important political connections. Several non-sequential Town of Nantucket Beach Permits numbering one more than the number of times I've actually driven on the beach. One YACK TV oval sticker, which is covered up by one Nantucket Television sticker, which is covered up by one sticker that says, aptly, "FREADOM!" And an Allen Reinhard for Selectman sticker with one corner peeling up where I almost ripped it angrily off my car after he voted to pave West Chester Street, but at the last minute I decided to give him one more chance.

I'll miss the holes on the back seats and on the arm rest where my dog, Seven, put his toenails through the upholstery trying to maintain his balance. And I'll miss the way Seven lies down, with his back end in the back seat and his front end in the front so he can hang loose with me during nighttime errands to Cumbies or Orange Street Video or the return trip from Water Tower Beach, sandy and wet and blissfully tired from fetching 300 glow-in-the-dark rubber fastballs.

I'll miss the magic marker, food and pen stains on the cloth seats following several trips off island with two kids, and their coloring books, Harry Potter one through seven, secret diaries, iPods and Nintendo DS players, string cheese wrappers, juice boxes and many, many forgotten treasures that have fallen between the seats only to be sucked up months later by the car wash coin-op vacuum.

I'll miss the cup holders filled to overflowing with beach glass and shells and lucky rocks with perfect stripes though them. And I'll miss the loading capacity for beach parties where I would routinely lug a full size table and side table, grille, cooler, umbrella, charcoal, five bags of food, utensils, tablecloth, firewood, wooden benches, pineapple jalapeño barbecue sauce, several flashlights for flashlight tag, s'mores, towels, extra clothes, a way-too-happy dog, two kids and a spouse. (But of course, I forgot the matches completely.)

But I won't miss the dents and scratches and finicky ignition and the child safety locks that are jammed despite the fact that my kids are long since old enough to open their own doors safely. We've had that old SUV almost as long as we've lived on the island - seven of those years without a car payment. I recall our friends, the Sweenys, bought the same color SUV at the same time from Don Allen, but theirs was a Mercury.

Now the Sweenys have moved off to Duxbury, and Arch McColl, fixer of beloved cars, is gone and I gave up on beach stickers and the infant car seats and boosters have been carted away to take it or leave it, and the opening day scallop smell is almost imperceptible, and the squeakiness has lost its charm and novelty.

So to you, I say, goodbye and fare well on the farm, you sweet, green, dented, odiferous truck-thing. You've served us well.

Squeak on. I

Grant Sanders is the Host of YACK, The Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com and he's an excellent driver. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Or his wife.