Time Capsule -a memoir of sorts

Today I opened a time capsule…a vessel containing no relics, simply extraneous pieces of this and that from times past. Those things left behind were not planned or planted, just forgotten for a time. Now, the contents awaken memories briefly or stir faint curiosity, as I sort through them all and prepare to lay this time capsule to rest, to say farewell to my old van called “Lurch.”
Lurch has character; that’s why it has a name. However, Lurch was forced into retirement a year ago (the result of many years of service and many maladies, topped off by an unfortunate incident with a deer), and has been camping out in my driveway awaiting removal to some Grey Haven of automobiles. Thus it came about that I finally confronted the odious task of clearing everything out of Lurch, so that it could be properly disposed of (though “buried” almost seems a more fitting term).
Lurch and I have been through a lot together, more than I have time to recount here. However, it seems fitting to mention a few of the qualities and memories associated with Lurch, as a parting tribute.
I started calling the car Lurch when I was irritated with the way it shuddered when I put it in gear, and puffed haltingly and indecisively up hills (“I think I can, I think I can…aw heck, maybe not…”). Eventually it became a term of endearment, and derisive fondness.
As per tradition of the family curse, the passenger side window could not be rolled down, and all of the other doors had something wrong with them too. The side door stuck, and had to be pulled at the top; the back doors wouldn’t open with a key (and now not at all), and the driver’s side door met up with a concrete post in a parking garage, leaving it concave enough for a draft to sneak in around the edges.
The air conditioner can’t be used when idling, and the heater takes 15 minutes to warm up (about the time it takes to get anywhere). The tape deck broke, but the radio works –thank goodness.
“Accelerate” is a foreign concept to Lurch, but “gradually less slowly” is more familiar; “brake” is something that happens once the pedal is depressed almost to the floor, and “steering” is somewhat akin to guiding a meandering bowling ball or lazy goldfish.
Lurch’s face has the most scars: the passenger side headlight is smashed, the blinker hangs by a few wires, and the wheel well is bent. The front grill is missing teeth, and hangs forward in a lopsided fashion overlooking the dented bumper. All that was rather recent, really; before those two unnamed events Lurch was quite good looking.
The back windows display stickers for Dutch Bros. Coffee, MENC collegiate, and all four years worth of campus parking permit stickers. There’s also a rear license plate holder given to me by one of my sisters, which reads “If I go any faster, I’ll burn out my hamsters!”
I have been locked out, had to jump-start, tow, and put the fear of the mechanic into Lurch, and although rather unreliable, Lurch still got me to the important places where I needed to go (most of the time): school, home, late night organ practices, classroom observations, student teaching, trips to the store, new home, new work, visits to friends…
Yes, Lurch smells the same, feels the same, and still feels like mine. But now I bid farewell to Lurch, gratefully acknowledging its years of service on my behalf. Ah, it’s a gutless wonder, but it has heart…or so it seems. It has held pieces of my life, and that is enough to move me to sentimentality such as this!


Inside the time capsule that is Lurch, I found these items, to name a few:

¬ the rain poncho from my college graduation, that I used to keep my cap and gown less wet than they would have been without it
¬ blue sunglasses, now broken, that I got on a trip to Victoria, Canada with my best friend and her family
¬ two pairs of driving gloves, including the black pair that left dark smudges on my face the night of my senior recital
¬ a bag of mail from the summer after graduation
¬ old church bulletins and sermon notes from one of the churches I attended in Seattle
¬ two half-used bottles of hand lotion
¬ no less than three containers of oil (+ a filter), which I would never have changed myself
¬ several Dutch Bros. Coffee window stickers
¬ an old purse (no money, unfortunately)
¬ a bag of hair accessories that I stashed in an odd corner and forgot about, during one of my moves out of a dorm room
¬ jack and tire iron (since the old set broke, and Dad replaced a tire at least one time that I can think of, when he visited me at school)
¬ jumper-cables, which saved my bacon on MANY occasions
¬ remnants of a survival kit, containing wool blanket and MRE food packets (in case the car broke down somewhere desolate… a definite possibility)
¬ ancient owner’s manual and paperwork belonging to my grandparents, plus all maintenance records from when Lurch belonged to them. Also my own insurance slips.
¬ Pieces of the front grill that got bashed out by the deer
¬ Mutilated front license plate… I’d rather not go into detail about that episode, let’s just say I was mad at Lurch for a long time over it
¬ small American flag that I hung from my front visor after 9/11
¬ two cassette tapes I recorded with my (then) favorite songs and played in the tape deck until it broke