Dear Reader:

This is where the “Green Vue” was discovered….on the other side of Old Orangeburg road…a location we local folks call the “boonies.”

The car ended up less than 10 miles from my house. It was trashed but remarkably not permanently damaged. A true miracle the (last) officer told me….most stolen cars are never found or if they are they have been wrecked in the process. I was in the small percentage of the population that got their car back in fairly stable condition.

In other words…the juvenile delinquent car thief didn’t want my car. All the idiosyncrasies I have complained about on my old car proved to be the catalyst to its discovery & recovery. I have an engine light that comes on (computer light switch problem) but nothing to do with engine problems and an oil light that comes on….when there is plenty of oil.

Any of you with old cars know this to be true…we just get so used to these “blurbs” that we visually tune them out….and just keep on keeping on.

I think the “Green Vue” went on a short “joy ride” which turned out not to be very joyful and the culprit decided this car was going to stop and leave him stranded. So he picked a remote neighborhood far out with just trailers, woods, and fields…one of which had a huge trailer and parked the car between the trailer and the woods.

A neighbor cutting his lawn saw it, looked inside and saw it was trashed…the thief had taken the baby seat out and thrown it and lots of papers from the consoles and drawers out into the woods. He called the police and the report had just gone in…bingo! Car found!

And the thief didn’t throw the birthday bag with Anne’s watercolor in it out in the woods…the bags of zinnia seeds were scattered on the floorboard but still there. Maybe my juvenile delinquent car thief had a heart after all.

From a porn tape and the music blaring…everything pointed to a young person…probably teenager. We will never know why he chose my car…but I have a feeling he realized quickly he had chosen wrong. They couldn’t get a good finger print because there had been a rain shower where the car was parked.

But all is good….what is the name of that song…”If You Want to Be Happy” by Jimmy Soul (1963) with the lyrics….

If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life. Never make a pretty woman your wife. So for my personal point of view. Get an ugly girl to marry you…. the same philosophy must work with an ugly car…no one else wants it….even a car thief! 🙂

And now for the story behind Anne’s original watercolor of orange zinnias she gave me….she kept telling me at Oscars that she knew I liked bright orange flowers…especially zinnias…but when she finished the watercolor…she thought it was too serious…it should look happier.

I told her I saw “happy” and then, suddenly, three little packets of sunflower, zinnia, and Black-eyed Susan seeds fell out of the bag.

Now I knew  the symbolism was that next March or early spring when I plant the seeds… the happiness will come with the re-birth of a beautiful bed of bright colorful flowers to start a new season. In the painting two of the orange zinnias are starting to bow their heads, no longer in full bloom…ready to make seeds for the next generation…but they aren’t sad…they are happy for the ones who come after them!

So until tomorrow…There are “perks” at every age…and sometimes the best perks come as we age…because we know the secrets to what is really important and how not to believe everything we see!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh