Island Car

A year after we married my wife got a job as a math professor at the College of the Virgin Islands (now UVI). For the next three years I worked here and there; book store clerk, astronomy lecturer at a local resort, adjunct professor, and full time professor.

We lived on the top of the island on an old sugar estate. We had brought a car with us to the islands, a yellow Mercury Bobcat hatchback with "5" on the floor and bucket seats. We had to drive just about everywhere, so this poor car was very much over worked. Furthermore as time went on it started to rust out, becoming an island car.

First the left rear foot of the driver's seat punched through the bottom of the car. As a fix we put a flattened coffee can on the floor under the foot.

Then the driver-side door started to fall off (but never quite did). We could no longer close the driver door from the inside. Well no problem, just get in the passenger side and crawl over the stick shift.

That's when the passenger side door decided to no longer be open able from the outside. Now we had to have a routine: 1. Open driver side door, 2. Open passenger side door from the inside, 3. Close driver side door from the outside, 4. Go around the car, 5. Enter the passenger side, 6. Close that door, 7. Crawl over the stick-shift and drive off.

Finally a few months before we left the right side front light fell out, as it had rusted out from its moorings. Of course the light was still held by the wires and amazingly still worked. For several days as we drove at night the light would bounce around shining at all sorts of random things. Eventually we were able duct tape the thing in, but we really never could quite aim it correctly.

This was what we left in the island not to mention an almost rusted out hood and wheel wells. In three years we turned a little yellow car into a beloved rust bucket, our little island car.

Update: My eldest daughter reminds me that we had to use a crochet hook to reset the carburetor after starting the car towards the end.