A Melancholy Farewell to My Elderly 911

It's gone. That car was so drop-dead gorgeous, truly, and I miss it in more ways than I will be able to adequately describe here. The older among us, both animate and inanimate alike, need attention; it's sadly normal. At the same time, when an old animate mortal (like me) becomes stiff with arthritis and other symptoms of general decline, it's difficult to give proper attention to the needs of ancient machines in our care. It hurt me a lot every time I crawled out from beneath the belly of my 911, and I did it many hundreds of times. At last it was enough. I sold it, and I'm not happy. I tell people that I parted with my car, and they say, "Congratulations for selling your car!" I don't say anything in response to this, because it makes no sense to me at all; I don't need to be congratulated for abandonment. They are responding to another objective that they imagine I had, but misunderstand.

My workshop is empty. What next?

We all have issues and struggle to get through them to survive - including my 'late' car - but that car could do nothing to help itself; that was up to me. I agree that it was 'just a car' as some immediately point out, but really I don't fully believe that. This hasn't to do with the vaunted history and panache that is so often associated with the Porsche marque. I don't care that it was a Porsche at all, but rather that it was a little machine with a personality: it was spunky, it was an individual - it had to be interesting. I did my best for it, and I had to be creative to do so; it paid me back for my efforts.

Some people buy and sell cars all of the time. They talk about some car that was so great, but they got rid of it in a few months, or maybe a year. Great, really? Why is it gone, then? I guess that they would not grasp my mindset, and I struggle with theirs, so be it. I am what I am, and I enjoyed my Porsche for slightly less than eight years.  I would still have it if things were different.

Last trip out.

At this point I absolutely have not decided what type of car I might acquire next, or if I will get one at all. There are cars beyond Porsche that are very attractive for many reasons, too, and I am thinking about all of them. Or none of them. Do I need a hobby car? Nobody 'needs' a hobby car. Maybe I should take up knitting socks, or collecting antique bicycle tires; at least those hurt the planet less.

After all, the whole world is moving toward electric cars, anyway, and all of this fossil fuel combustion business will one day be vaguely remembered in the same way as ox carts are recalled by us today - they did a job, but in a coarse and limited way. We may be discussed in future seminars for having thought up such absurd conveyances, invented disregarding the planet and our health, and everything, just so we could go from here to there, tant pis. But a Porsche could do it in an entertaining way, wow. What little it takes to entertain the limited, like me. Never mind, one day people and goods will be teleported from here to there, and they will laugh at the idea of 'driving' - what a farcical and piteous waste of time, because where you are will be important to them, not how you got there in your 'sport' car. I do continue to enjoy people that I have met via my Porsche, though, so there's that.

The new owner is the bald guy. He's nice, and I hope that he enjoys the car.

I believe every one of the ideas that I spelled out above. Then again, maybe I live in the wrong century, although I'm unsure what the correct one would be.

Goodbye, and farewell. I will miss you, little analogue friend.

I'll have more thoughts about all of this, and before long additional ideas will appear in new posts on this blog. Friends have been lending me various models of Porsche's to drive. We'll see. Example: check the 'P.P.P.S.' at the bottom of the post found here. 

In the meantime I'll keep busy . . .  This is a '78 and it runs great with 7550+ hours on it, but details need some TLC.