Movin' On Up

"I've always been asked 'What is my favorite car?' and I've always said 'The next one.'" - Carroll Shelby, Designer of the Shelby Mustang

I couldn't agree more Mr. Shelby.

After being on the island for about a month, Amy and I realized that we needed to turn in our rental car and join the ranks of automobile owners on the island.  (We sold our old car to Amy's dad.)  As with all things, every car on the island is brought in from somewhere else.  You have cars from the U.S. and Mexico (with the steering wheel on the left, facing forward), and England (with the steering wheel on the right, facing forward).  Also the cost of vehicles on the island are pretty high.  All cars coming onto the island, in addition to the shipping costs themselves, come with a pretty hefty import duty.  For example, the import duty on our old car would have been about $15,000.  Consequently, there is a fairly limited selection of cars available for purchase on the island.

Being used to the finest in automotive technology, we set ourselves a high bar and set out car shopping on the island.  After receiving some inside information that one of the local car rental companies had recently unloaded some of their "gently-used" vehicles to one of the car dealerships on the island, we pounced on the opportunity.  We proudly entered the dealership, and I stated in no uncertain terms, "please give us your finest piece of German-engineered technology, complete with killer sound system, black-on-black color scheme, and all the bells and whistles."  Amy's request was more direct: "We would like to buy the cheapest car on your lot."  The car salesman, after looking at us like we were escaped mental patients, took us out onto the lot.

We looked at several great vehicles, debated the pros and cons of each model, and, after some haggling and discussion...

BEHOLD- our new whip:


Yes.  Go ahead.  Drink it in.

I present to you the 20?? Suzuki Alto.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the new Schwartz chariot represents the finest vehicle $3,500 can buy.  (I attempted to get the Kelley Blue Book price for the car, but because this car is so advanced they don't even sell it in the U.S., I couldn't find a comparison price.)  It sports four wheels, four seats, and a complete steering wheel.  This bad boy also has all the muscle we need on the island (the maximum speed limit on the island is 40 m.p.h.)  Obviously, when you have a vehicle of this caliber, you get a manual transmission, so you can really feel the road under your wheels and get the maximum performance out of the engine.  Although they had four of these gems on the lot, we chose the one with a radio- because we're fancy like that.  Little did we know this audio powerhouse gets all three of the island radio stations in perfectly, but it allows us to blast it from one complete 3" speaker.

The interior design is simplicity personified.  The single gauge measures the only thing that matters- SPEED.  As you can see, with a maximum speed limit of 64.37 km/hr on the island, this dragster has plenty of room to outrun the local lawmen.

In addition, we customized our new ride immediately.  This is known as a "mod" in our local car aficionado circle.  While most of the world would see these as zip-ties holding our hub caps on, I refer to them as durability-enhancing wheel reinforcements- all necessary to achieve break-neck speeds and top performance.



The best thing about this car is it flies under the radar.  The "fake news" reviews of the Suzuki Alto are less than stellar:  "There are other, better ways of getting from A to B.  Like Walking."  (Top Gear (1 out of 5 stars)).  "The Suzuki Alto is one of the cheapest superminis on sale, but it's also bland and unrefined."  (AutoExpress.Com (3 out of 5 stars)).  But perhaps the best review comes from CarThrottle.com.  In response to the question, "is it sexy?" the answer is: "it's hard for me to call the Alto a sexual stunner.  It's boxy, bug-eyed, and has a rear flatter than Taylor Swift's."

Haters gonna hate.

But perhaps the best thing about the new car is it would make my grandpa proud. You see, my grandparents were German farmers who built and ran a farm in Wisconsin.  My cousins and I would stay with them for two weeks each summer and work on the farm- baling hay, feeding calves, and helping with all the chores.  These were the best times of my childhood, and the times that I learned valuable life lessons from my grandparents that I have found myself thinking about often since we moved to the island.

First were the lessons of self-sufficiency.  When we were working on the farm, I asked my grandpa, who worked on the farm into his 70's, why he didn't hire someone to help him.  He said, "never hire someone to do something you can do yourself."  Grandpa fixed his own tractors, built his own buildings, and worked his farm with just himself and Grandma.  I keep this thought in my mind every day, when I fix the gutters, clear the grounds, tear out walk-in coolers, and try to do the things I can to renovate this place.  Sometimes it isn't fun, and it would be much easier to simply hire someone, but whenever I start thinking like that, I picture a 70-year-old farmer, hands full of grease, fixing a 20-year-old tractor, and I feel proud to be carrying on his lessons and philosophy of life.

Grandma taught lessons in practicality.  We would help Grandma with the laundry, which included hanging the laundry to dry on clothes lines.  At our house, we had a clothes dryer.  So I asked my Grandma why she put her clothes out on the lines instead of having a dryer.  She said, "why do you need a dryer, when we can hang them out and let the wind dry them.  And, they smell so much better this way."  Here on the island, we don't have a clothes dryer either.  With the high cost of electricity, and nothing but sunshine and wind in the air, hardly anyone has dryers.  So, whenever we do laundry, I get to hang them on the lines, and think of my Grandma and doing laundry with her.  I think she would be happy to know that I remember just where to put the clothes pins and how to fold the clothes over the lines so they don't fall.  And yes, the clothes do smell better this way.

But the reason I think Grandpa would approve of our new car is the lesson that "things are just things."  Often we get caught up in having things, or nice things, or more things.  Our old car was (slightly) nicer than our new car.  Our old clothes collections were bigger than our new clothes collection.  But all of these things are simply that- things, tools that we should use to live our lives, not the purpose of our lives themselves.  Our new car reminds me that the things we have in our lives are really not that important. Rather, the quality of the lives we live, the people with whom we live our lives, and the memories we make and cherish (including the life lessons and wisdom of our grandparents), are what make life meaningful.


















Comments

  1. Inspirational and fucking hilarious. Alto just needs SiriusXM radio, a Kicker box, and some dubs. (and a Banyan logo)

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    1. Lol. With all those add-ons it would triple the value of the car.

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  2. I prefer to hang all of my cloths to try too. They last longer and look better. As for the car, it beats walking that is for sure!

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    1. I know right. My 2004 Poison t-shirt will last forever.

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  3. As your loving and felonious brother, I will gladly straight rip off the hood ornament of the next benzo I see and mail it to you. You can use some more of those zip ties to pimp your new ride.

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    Replies
    1. Sweet. Would also accept Rolls Royce eagle...

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    2. A rolls does not have an eagle. It has "the spirit of ecstasy" which is a woman

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  4. My favorite lesson from Grandma was that it is ok to have a beer at 10am.

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    1. Amen. A lesson passed on to all heirs to the Schwartz name.

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  5. The performance enhancing zip ties - I am dying! Grandpa's have good lessons. So nice you are no longer indebted to logos.

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    1. Nope. The only logo that matters here on in is the business logo (under development as we speak).

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  6. A nice reminder that the only things worth having are priceless. Great entry, Randall Schwartz!

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  8. Nice to see you quoting the great Carol Shelby, of Red Dragon fame and also my older cat's namesake (eponymous glory usually saved for rock n roll songs).

    Throw some luggage racks on that Suzuki and a velcro dash-mounted bose speaker and voila: "truck with advanced hifi sound".

    It is definitely true, as both your grandparents and Tyler Durden remind us. "The things you own, end up owning you." I think we now have confirmation of a Geneva Branch of Fight Club. Would ask/say more, but u know, the first rule....

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    1. This quote was for you buddy. My grandparents have a lot in common with Mr. Durden...

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  9. As an additional mod, make sure you have something to cut the ties in case you need to fix the new chariot.

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