1993-1998 – My Geo Metro

My second car was a fun car to have when I was in my Rocky Point parish. Since I was doing much more traveling all over Long Island, and getting familiar with the many roads and expressways, I was encouraged to change my Japanese Tercel for an American car. I made sure that all my cars were hatchbacks, with a large space in the back so that I can place boxes and other stuff, especially if I had to move from parish to parish, which I did twice in 1996 and 1998. My favorite part of any car was the cassette or CD player. The first three had cassette players, which worked fine with me since I had a lot of cassettes, which I enjoyed listening to in my travels. I did not doubt the reliability of the Geo Metro, until I arrived in upstate New York, in Pleasant Valley. Someone in the parish asked me what kind of car I had and when I told him that it was a Geo Metro, he told me, “I’m sorry to tell you Father Julian, but my lawn-mower is more powerful than your car! You need something better up here, as we get much more snow than Long Island.” Within a few days, I was at the Poughkeepsie Honda dealer looking for a sturdier car and I was introduced to the Honda CR-V. I realized that it was a much stronger car, and since I would probably make many trips to visit my friends in former parishes, all on Long Island, its acronym was well suited for my needs, a CR-V, a Comfortable Run-around Vehicle. It turned out that the Geo Metro had three cylinders, while a lawn-mower has 4 cylinders! But what would a Maltese priest in New York know about car cylinders? More about my travels with the Honda tomorrow, as I traded my beloved Geo to a CR-V.