Our Nissan is 20 years old!

How many of you have had the same car for 20 years? Yeah, I know, not many right?
We bought our Nissan Sentra in 1994.  It was on the show room floor and Rick actually drove it away from there.  We leased it for a few years and then eventually bought it outright.  It's now 2014.  That's 20 glorious years of family history in that car.  That little car has seen us through thick and a lot of thin. It has a standard transmission and each of our young drivers have had to learn how to drive with a stick shift and how to use a clutch. The third gear has been broken for 15 of those 20 years, and all drivers have quickly become accustomed to shifting from 2nd gear to 4th gear, bypassing 3rd gear. It has seen a lot of adventures:

• It has been tipped on its side by a certain driver while going down a steep hill;
• It has been crashed into by a non-observant college student which resulted in a small claims court case that we (Andy) won;
• It has had a side window broken out and was vandalized while parked in student housing;
• It was been the college car for Jordan, Claire, Dave and Andy (with Jordan using it the least and yes, she is still bitter about that);
• It was Rick's work car for the first part of its life;
• It came with a really nice sounding stereo system installed and a certain someone took it out and installed a sub-standard stereo system with sub-woofers and a huge base pounding in the truck;
• Rick and I hit a deer in the Nissan while driving to Manti to attend a wedding.  It could have been bad news, but Rick avoided hitting the dear head on and instead the animal hit the side view mirror and tore it completely off.  I'm sure the deer had a bad headache after that encounter with the Nissan.
• When a certain person was pulling out of a parking garage, they hit a person on a bike which left a dent in the front right fender that is still there;
• Our four cherished children rode down in it to AZ one summer (if they had been involved in a high speed crash, there would have been no survivors);
• Upon Andy's return from his mission, it got a new paint job and was changed from dark green to black, with new tires and four fancy hubcaps for $19.99;  
• Rick has graciously paid the insurance and the taxes and registration on it for all those years;
• It was paid off many, many years ago, but the driver who took over the car also had to take on any repairs what were needed;
• It has probably done more wheelees in parking lots and has been driven too fast and over four wheeling terrain more times than I know about.

And...it just keeps on going.  It has 165,494 miles on it which is really quite low considering how old it is.  It is strictly an around town car, but it has served us well.  When Andy and Chelsea got married, we sold it to them for $1.  They now get to maintain it, insure it and register it.  At least it's still a member of the family. We love you little Nissan Sentra. Long may she live.  Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.  Grandma Mayme would be proud.