It's the end of an era, time to say goodbye to a valued and trusted friend of the family: our 1997 Toyota Camry. The car my son and daughter recently learned to drive on. The car my wife and I brought them home from the hospital in. The car that went on countless visits to grandmas in Bloomingdale, Waukegan and Effingham, August picnics in Pleasant Prairie and Labor Day weekends in Witt.

The car that took my son and I through multiple levels of youth baseball; as a five year old in Pee Wee league, through middle-school's EG Travelers right up to this summer's Colt and American Legion teams as a high school sophomore. Me never vacuuming the small clumps of infield dirt on the floorboards while it was technically still baseball season, instead letting them slowly break down and dissolve away.

The vehicle that commuted me along my career path with four companies across four different suburbs. The car that on one lovely late autumn day I drove to work with the sunroof open, then after work discovered that that was the day fall decided to really live up to its verb, and via the still-open sunroof my entire interior front seat became completely blanketed with fresh crunchy leaves from the tree-lined office parking lot (fact: they were still on my floorboard over six months later).

This same sunroof that, while waiting in the parking lot for my wife to finish shopping, a toddler-versioned of my daughter poked her head out of and gleefully exclaimed to the passer-bys "Merry Christmas people of Walmart!" (which knowing my daughter was not likely even at Christmastime, such is her whimsical personality). And as she grew taller, able to sit in the front seat, waiting in that same parking lot, now able to stretch her legs so her feet rested on the front dashboard and her bare toes leaving little marks on the interior windshield that magically didn't become apparent until at night like some sort of invisible ink, as if leaving a little "hi dad!" for me to discover. The car that I cruised her and her friends as the "cool dad" (I made them call me that as payment/bribe for their McFlurries I'd been charmed into paying for) to many Friday night teen dances and weekend mall adventures where I'd usually drop off two or three kids but somehow end up with four or five on the way back.

This valued and trusted friend of the family is now in the hands of the Willow Creek Community Church C.A.R.S ministry whose volunteer mechanics will use their skills as best as they can to repair the various little creaks and leaks, the rear passenger window that no longer opens, the driver side exterior door handle that no longer exists, with the goal to provide a single mom in need with a reliable vehicle for her family (or if determined not fit for that noble calling, will utilize our car's viable parts to help refurbish similarly-donated vehicles).

www.willowcreek.org/CARS

My daughter gave me a guitar-shaped Silly Bandz (remember those?) back when she was in 3rd or 4th grade to remind me of her when I drove to work.

(This article originally written in November 2014)