A Sensible Sedan
On monogamy and movement
The thing is I used to love cars.
Like, really, really love cars. Until I was 16, my room was filled with cut-out pictures of muscle cars, which I would carefully remove from my subscriptions of Car and Driver and Motor Trend. I waited impatiently for each issue and then ran off to my room to pour through every detail around the new Ferrari Testarossa or the Porsche 911. I knew every make and model, and all the specifications.
I loved everything about cars from their sleek designs to what they represented. Vehicles were not simply a means of getting between places, but a celebration of how you demanded the world to see you. To drive a Ferrari was to tell the world that you had it all and parked at fire hydrants because you didn’t give a fuck. As a pre-teen boy, I couldn’t help but fantasize about zipping down the highways with a bevy of beautiful babes. Whenever I made some money from babysitting or a lemonade stand, I put it aside - another dollar closer to the $100,000 I needed for a Lamborghini.
As my love of cars became an obsession, I begged my dad to sell our totally lame Honda Accord and buy something - anything - cooler. Who needed a car that made sense, never broke down, was safe, and had everything we needed to comfortably move around, and nothing more? What we really needed, I implored, was a two-seater that went zero-to-60 in under four seconds. That was the perfect car for a family of five with three growing boys with hockey bags.
But, alas, my dad was not interested, and took pride in holding onto our family vehicle until it died an honorable death from old age. The Honda Accord was not just a vehicle, but a named and loved member of our family. Harry Honda was a partner in 150,000 miles of family trips up and down I-95, ski vacations, hockey games, endless fights with my brothers, and trips to school. If Harry’s pizza-stained seats could talk, they would rejoice in endless games of geography on trips to Maine and also understand the emptiness of my parents' threats deep into Massachusetts that any additional outburst would “turn this car around," thus destroying the family trip for all, mainly my parents who longed for it the most.
Only when our family mechanic, after countless resuscitations of Harry’s well-worn chassis, pulled my dad into his office to deliver the sad news - “There’s nothing more I could do. It’s time." -- did he move on. Our family tearfully sent Harry to the scrap heap, and then we sat shiva at home - welcoming in fellow passengers and neighbors. Each shared a story about Harry’s timeless gray, corduroy seats, or the time our au pair broke the front seat after a tryst in a nearby parking lot with the neighborhood lifeguard.
Upon conclusion of the ritual mourning period, my father went back to the dealership and bought another practical, sensible, and reliable Honda Accord. Another boring mobile for another 150,000 miles of reliable sameness.
As my brothers and I got older and traveled with more things and people, I begged my dad to, at least, buy a bigger car. If he couldn’t see the beauty and need of a 224-mph sports car, could we, at least, have some more space to avoid endless brotherly elbows and shoving in the back seat? Ford had just introduced the world to the Explorer, the SUV that would transform the car industry and kill countless in its gas-guzzling wake. To me, it seemed like a palace on wheels, a way to move us and our stinky hockey gear, skis, and friends with ample room to spare.
But, it was no use. My dad subscribed to the simplicity of a practical sedan that didn’t break down, wasn’t expensive to fix, was stingy on gas, and had all of the space we needed, but no more. And, no matter the number of passengers or amount of luggage, he would always fit everything into our Honda. Even when my mom and brothers doubted him, or we needed to transport the goalie of our hockey team along with two forwards, he would calmly get to work fitting the most impossible of objects into America’s best-selling and totally boring sedan. He would lay out all of the baggage, calculating in his head the order of operations required to fit everything inside - bags wedged in the trunk, and sticks resting comfortably between him and the driver’s side door. When the five of us went to ski, our things always squeezed into the back and our skis strapped to the roof. When family came to visit from overseas with suitcases for months, everyone and their luggage always fit in our Honda, even if one of the kids had to hold a suitcase or two on a lap.
It was as if my dad and Harry Honda had made a pact, an agreement that they needed each other and no one else. Harry would get us to places safe, and stretch and squeeze its steel corners to make room for everyone and everything, but nothing more. In return, my father committed to religious oil changes, gently easing - never slamming - Harry’s trunk, caring for him into old age and beyond, and holding off on his oldest son’s endless requests for a family Maserati.
With each family trip or hockey game, my dad would carefully pack the car, ease down the trunk, step into the driver’s seat, and turn to all of us with a knowing and loving smile to say, “See, it always fits.”
And, he was always right. It always fit.
With time, my dad strayed from Hondas. First to an Acura, a branch of Honda. Then to a Volvo. More sedans that had all that we needed and nothing more. Maybe it was a mid-life crisis or his decision to finally listen to his car-crazy son, but one day we went out to splurge on an Audi. I couldn’t believe it, and raced home hoping it was a convertible or a hot rod only street legal in Germany, but, alas, my father simply upgraded our lame sedan to a lamer station wagon.
Across every mile and minute of safe and reliable movement during my childhood, I promised myself that I would never drive such boring vehicles As soon as I could, I was buying a Ferrari or, at least, a more sensible 1964 Ford Mustang.
That’s right, Daniel Yuli Harris would never be caught dead in a sensible car.
But as adulthood tempers us and reminds us that we are our parents, practicality also has its advantages. With marriage, my wife and I set out in search of our first family car — something safe with ample space for the children who were still only a set of hopes and dreams at the time. My dad offered to help us look, and we took off to Central Avenue to scour the dealerships. As we explored each make and model, he humored me and my desire to test drive a fleet of impossibly impractical cars. For each car, he would ask the dealer leading questions to help demonstrate how each of my fantasy cars was horribly uncomfortable, had no trunk space, and required a mortgage to maintain.
And then, begrudgingly, we went to the Honda dealership where my father stood back and let his beloved vehicles speak for themselves. My wife fell in love first. “It’s so practical," she remarked. The car was easy to drive and had all of the things we needed and nothing more. As I sat in the driver’s seat, remembering the endless torture of sitting in the rear for 300,000 miles of Hondas, I remarked at how the back seat was actually perfect for a growing team of kids and car seats. The exterior was sturdy and seemed it could withstand a tussle with a much larger car. It even had some cool features, like a sun roof.
The car just, dare I say, made sense.
We drove it off the lot that day. It stayed with us through countless road trips, the birth of two kids, and, subsequently, endless Cheerios and bananas smashed into its leather seats. All the while, our children seemed content and thought our Honda was the greatest thing on four wheels. They were desperate when we sold it and moved to New York City.
Recently, we decided to buy a new car. Another practical four-wheeler with space for the kids — now three, a gazillion airbags, and just enough room in the trunk. The children were thrilled until one day, when Leo, our six-year-old, turned to me as I strapped him into his car seat and said, “This car is so boring. We should get a Porsche!”
If I Can Make It There is a collection of stories about the things and people, including me, that move through New York City. A celebration of the characters who crawl through endless traffic, slog through the subways, and stroll under the shade of scaffolding.
Like our fragmented and broken transportation system, some stories race with enthusiasm to a red light and others remain hopelessly stuck behind a double-parked Mercedes with New Jersey plates and blinkers on as the driver screams over the honking, “Just hold on for a minute! I’m only stopping in for a quick dinner at Sardis.”
And, all of these stories could occur nowhere else but the greatest city on Earth - New York Fucking City.