Ever since I started my role as chaplain
at Hilltop Gardens in May 2016, they started to pick me up every day from home,
but then they realized it would be better if they leased a car for me, and
drive myself back and forth. That’s how
I ended up with a Toyota Vitz to use for my daily trip. This past year I’ve been
using it only twice a week, between Sunday and Tuesday as I stay on campus the
rest of the week. But being unfamiliar with Maltese roads, and being nervous driving in front of a shiny red sports
car who wants to go at 60 miles an hour, after my last birthday, I decided to
stop driving and use public transportation, with which I am very familiar and
find pretty convenient. It was only a 5-mile trip jostling through busy bumper
to bumper traffic, in our Maltese crowded streets. But I never really got
attached to the Toyota Vitz, and never felt it as my own, as the other 4 have
been. The 4 US cars were all like brothers and sisters to me, but this one was
like a long distant third cousin. So there were no hard feelings when I had to say
goodbye. Besides now I enjoy walking much more, putting on three miles a day,
sometimes more, which of course, is good exercise. But looking back at my 37
year driving career, I have great memories, and miss the most driving to my
Mission churches in Eastern Oregon, taking my time, and with my camera close by
to shoot any wildlife scenes and animals, which were abundantly common, from
bald eagles to chipmunks, from deer to wild rabbit, from suicidal squirrels to groundhogs.
I always described my camera as the wife I never had, always in my passenger
seat and always hanging around my neck. And always quite and silent.
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