“Long May You Run” is a song from the one album that Steven Stills and Neil Young did together as a duo.  If I remember correctly Neil gets the writer’s credit for this love song to a car.  I wrote here in this blog a few weeks ago about a car accident I was in during April of 2005.  Now I want to express my gratitude for is the car that likely saved my life.

“She” is a 1996 Volvo 960 that I got new 15 years ago.  From the beginning “she” was my favorite of all cars I have owned.  (I know guys like to refer to cars they care about as ‘she’.  I have never asked before, but do women refer to cars they care about as ‘he” or is caring about cars purely a guy thing?).  I always kept the car maintained very well and at the time of the accident in ’05 she was in top mechanical shape.  Sadly the car got banged up badly in the accident.

I was on the interchange of two freeways where there was construction.  The entrance ramp I was on had a stop sign just before one was able to merge onto the second highway.  So there I sat behind a big dually pickup waiting my turn after he got his.  All of a sudden things went crazy and for a split second I had no idea what was happening.  At first I thought my car was exploding, but learned a short while later the explosion and smoke was from the airbags going off.

Once I managed to get out of the car I saw a florist delivery van had hit me from behind.  Apparently the driver was in a big hurry, going 45 mph on the ramp, looking to merge and never even looked to see the two vehicles stopped.  So he hit me and slammed me into the truck in front.  The airbags exploded, the windshield shattered and suddenly my well cared for car was a mess.

I am very grateful to this day to have been driving a car as safe as a Volvo.  The drivers of both other vehicles left in emergency vehicles.  I walked away.

Due to the age of my car (10 years old at the time) and the cost of repairs (basically two new bumpers, a windshield and airbag replacement) the car was deemed a total loss.  However, I took salvage rights to the car, accepted the reduced insurance payment, located another car just like it to use as a donor car and brought the “old girl back to life”.   So now “she” looks a little more beat up due to the fact that the donor car parts were not in the pristine shape my car had been in.   And another six years have passed also.  But “she” is still my “girl”!

I have two other vehicles, but still love to drive my Volvo.  The ” old girl” has less than 70,000 miles on her and I will keep her  going as long as “she”cares to run.  Why?  “She” saved my life and deserves to “live”.  It is my way of expressing gratitude for the day my Volvo saved my life.  My wish for the car is best summed up in a line from the song I talked about at the beginning of this blog:  “long may your chrome heart shine”.

Praise the bridge that carried you over.  George Colman