About a month ago, we stumbled upon something that brought us great joy. It was The Orange Saab's REALLY orange Grandpa! (see pictures above)
For those who are not familiar with the details of our past, here is the story of the Orange Saab.
The first time I saw The Orange Saab, it was pulling up behind St. Aloysius High School in Vicksburg, MS. Mom was dropping us off (I wasn't old enough to drive yet) and we were listening to Erasure on the Radio. Kate was still sporting the horned ponytail look and braces. I had ditched the braces and become familiar with the powers of aqua net but I still wore lumberjack shirts. We had yet to go bobbed. We had yet to become cool in any way, shape or form.
When we saw The Orange Saab and it's floppy haired driver, Mom, being far more superior than we when it came to recognizing what was cool and what was not (although WE were incapable of acknowledging that at that point) said, "What a cool car." And then, "That boy is cute, too!" Burnt Orange Saabs were NOT what teenagers in Vicksburg, MS in 1991 were driving. So, amongst the Nissan Altimas and Jeep Cherokees, the Saab stood out. The driver also stood out. He WAS cute and slim with his jeans rolled up in a style that wouldn't reach Vicksburg for a couple of more years. Because we intrinsically knew that he was infinitely cooler than we were, the only thing Kate and I could do was insult him. We called him, "Highwaters." He eventually turned out to be the love of my life.
Jim and I spent a lot of time in The Orange Saab, cruising around Vicksburg, listening to mixed tapes, speeding home to meet my curfew, driving to Jackson in our Doc Martins to go to music festivals, hanging out in parking lots, and going to parts of Waterways Experiment Station that we probably shouldn't have. We used to sit in the Orange Saab on a little peninsula across the lake from Jim's house. The dashboard of the Saab was cracked and faded after spending years in the Arizona heat. At one point we discovered that gummy bears were very sticky when we licked them, so we stuck some inside the Saab, where they proceeded to melt and then crystallize. Jim took me on our first date in the Orange Saab. And I think that I smoked my first cigarette in The Orange Saab. But the first time he kissed me was when I was getting into my own car, Pidge (Honda Accord Hatchback, 1981). And, embarrassingly, I was talking about The Muppets.
Some time ago, Jim's Orange Saab gave it's last putter on the side of the road in Arizona and was left for dead. Possibly it is scrap metal now, but we'll never forget how much a part of our teenage years it was. Long live the Orange Saab!
