I’ve now had a year of teaching second graders and moonlighting as a high-priced babysitter in Fairfield County under my belt when this photo was taken, in the summer of 1998. I’m standing in the school parking lot next to the first car I ever bought, a 1988 Honda Accord with a manual transmission and a cigarette burn in the front seat from the previous owner, who was a parent at the school. I’m still rocking the Birkenstocks; my summer look, apparently. I had started the job in Greenwich the fall after graduation, and at some point decided to stay on another year, with a new position teaching computers, and an education degree in progress.

The Honda was a good car, lasting me eight years of mostly trouble-free driving, except for the time fifth gear disintegrated in the gearbox, never to return, which was the subject of a call to Car Talk in 2003. Around this time, it was most heavily used for long-distance trips to postcard shows up and down the East Coast, and Yankees games during the week.