In Memorium Jax 1979 - July, 1999 1979 Volvo 244, 218k |
In Memorium Jax 1979 - July, 1999 1979 Volvo 244, 218k |
The winter before Pixel died, my parents brought another Volvo into the family. This was a slightly battered 1979 244 which had belonged to a family friend, but which unfortunately had been sitting unused for several years. Never a good thing for an older Volvo!
My little sister immediately named this car Jax, after the seal in the movie "The Secret of Roan Inish". My best friend, Christa, however, took to calling him Chiquita due to the fact that he was yellow and had large rusty patches... and the fact that she was performing in "1940's Radio Hour" at that point and therefore got to sing the Chiquita Banana song. Since Volvos are (in my opinion!) intrinsically male, this led to a long complicated life story for the world's first Volvo drag queen.
Jax too led a hard life with me — running up the mileage in the pursuit of my favourite band, and eventually crossing the United States with me when I moved west.
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Although most of the mileage Jax and I racked up together was while we were chasing after a Canadian band, our biggest adventure was definately the cross country trek that we took with my friend Chris. Jax never handled quite as nicely on the curves as Pixel did, the 244 not having quite the same turning radius, but he was certainly better able to handle high speeds (sometimes too well!!!) and long distances. The only real problem we ran into was crossing the Rockies in Colorado. | |
Once we hit San Francisco, unfortunately, I stopped being able to drive nearly as often or as far as I was used to doing. Jax spent most of his time sitting patiently waiting for me to make the infrequent journey up to the end of Golden Gate park, or over to Berkeley. I'm afraid I neglected him a great deal, but I'm still very sorry to see him go! |
Jax visits Gothenburg - Nebraska! |
