My wife cleaned out her car the other day. Bravo, I said.
But then she started glaring over at my baby — my 2005 Buick LaCrosse. Or the Jackmobile, named after my step-father Jack who passed on six years ago and bequeathed his car to any grandkid who wanted it.
There were no takers among the younger generation so I decided it fit my fancy. Old car, old guy, two peas in a parking spot.
Some people think I am “cool” because the Jackmobile, with its rag top, looks like a convertible. It is not. But It is hot — especially in the summer since I haven’t had the air conditioning fixed since I got it.
Oh, well.
The Jackmobile still deserves a good cleaning every once in a while, I suppose. And here are the little treasures I found while giving it its most recent (but not that recent) once-over:
— Five golf balls lost under the driver’s seat before they could do their disappearing act out on the course.
— An old album of the “Love Story” soundtrack. I recently gave a bunch of vintage records to my buddy Mike, but I just couldn’t give up the one with Ali McGraw on the cover.
— A sack from my dentist on the backseat floor with a new toothbrush, a little tube of toothpaste and some dental floss. Hey, it’s only been a month since my appointment.
— $20 worth of coupons for Taphouse on the Edge for a second-place finish by my trivia team.
— A pickle that must have come from my last Big Mac — which was at least four months … four weeks … OK, maybe four days ago. (Don’t tell my wife.)
— A little bottle of sunscreen on a lanyard passed out at the U.S. Senior Open at Notre Dame’s Warren Golf Course from ax few years back.
— A crushed Busch Lite can in my trunk. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Busch Lite in my life.
— Eighty-nine cents in change, including a Cumberland Gap commemorative quarter.
— A chipmunk cage that has been on the back seat for months. After catching a chipmunk a day in it for 12 straight days, I got tired of transporting them to the other side of the St. Joseph River. They’re not good swimmers, right?
— A peanut butter banana bar that I just haven’t had the guts to eat yet.
— A small case with field glasses in the between-the-seat console. I’m not a birdwatcher nor a private eye. I never knew they were there. I have to wonder what my step-father might have been using them for.
— A miniature I.U. red-and-white football in the trunk that has been gasping for some air for several years.
— A “Chad and Jeremy” CD, including “A Summer Song,” in the glove compartment. I think I randomly picked this one out of our 200-plus CD collection (what do you do with those now?) when I was trying to figure out if the CD player in the Jackmobile was working. It does — sort of.
— A Joe Morgan signature baseball bat in the trunk that had once been one of the choices in my golf bag after I occasionally had given up on my driver by the ninth hole.
— A “Great Courses” CD on “How to Publish Your Book.“ How did that work out? You haven’t seen me on any “Best Seller” list, have you?
— Winter gloves and hat on the back floor. Apparently just in time for … well, winter.
— A purple bandana and a Cub face mask for when Covid was raging .
— One knee brace, which really doesn’t help because I can never figure out which one of my knees is the really, really sore one or just the really sore one.
— A couple of handfuls of mulch out of a broken sack from the garden center where I occasionally work. Buyer beware there.
— A buckeye that is supposed to be lucky. Considering that the Jackmobile has never broken down on me, I guess it is.
Contact Bill at [email protected]