The Station Wagon Years

One night in the late 1990s, I mentioned to Dad that we were thinking about buying a used Saturn station wagon. After a moment, he sagely replied, “Yeah, I guess everybody has their station wagon years.” With that endorsement, we did buy the Saturn. I’m not much of a car guy, but I enjoyed my station wagon years. The years of little boys and road trips and a forest green Saturn with an Elvis bumper sticker.

Though it’s not universally true that “everybody” has their station wagon years, it is certainly a period of life that many families do go through, or at least used to. Maybe now, everybody just goes straight to the Minivan and Beyond years.

I’ve often pondered the wisdom of Dad’s statement, and I’ve wished I’d asked him to tell me what he enjoyed about his station wagon years, which were spent driving us around in a 1976 Plymouth Volaré.

Fast forward to late 2020. Dad had been gone for years and I was down at the old family homestead, helping to clean it out. I was in the garage when I discovered Dad had saved one of the Volaré nameplates.  So I’m thinking now that Dad must have enjoyed his station wagon years. Otherwise, he might not have kept a souvenir.

~217~