7/1/05; by Ruth Zaslow

Field Interviews

A ’97 Ford Ranger. A 2000 Mercury Mountaineer. A 2000 Honda Accord.

Yes, but usually the Mountaineer.

The pick-up we have because we live in the country. We sometimes have to haul things, go to the dump to take our garbage. The Honda we have because we like an economical car to go with the SUV. Mike (husband) had a Honda when we lived up in Seattle and he was working. He wanted an economical car for the commute and he’d had an Accord in college. This one, we got because it was available right here in town, we paid cash for it and the sale was simple. The Mercury we have for longer trips, or for when the whole family is going somewhere.

I suppose a bit because of the prestige. It’s nicer than a lot of SUV’s out there.

It has extras. Seat warmers, leather seats, which I like because they look good and are easy to clean. It has keyless entry, an extra row of seats in the back, and a CD player. It’s also a “name” which is nice, though we didn’t realize it was. We’ve had two Jeep Grand Cherokees and we just loved them. But the second one had a mechanical problem, and though the maker--GMAC, I think—said they had fixed it for this new one, we weren’t so sure. We wanted something practical too, and this was less spendy than it might have been because we bought it at the end of the year and got a good deal.

Yes.

Well, Mike was driving actually. We were running all around town. We took Kathy (daughter) to her grandma’s. Then we went to a movie. Then we went to the video store (they own the store). Then we picked up Kathy. Then we picked up a pizza. Then we went home.

Right after we all got in the car and got out of the garage, I put on the radio.

We have 10 or 12 pre-sets that we like. Mostly, we listen to 103.3, soft pop music, easy listening. But the radio is on and off when the kids are in the car. We turn it off if we get into talking with them, or if they start fighting and we have to get involved, or something. Now that I think of it, the radio has a mute button, but for some reason we never use it. We just use the on and off button.

No. the kids don’t like our music.

We like the radio. And the kids can’t agree on music. So no CD’s.

Eric likes AC/DC and Metallica. He has an MP3 player, but he doesn’t bring it in the car. He’s too impatient to learn to use it properly, so he’s only been able to record a couple of songs.

Kathy brings her CD player. She likes pop music—Hillary Duff, Brittany Spears. Andrew might use it if she’s not using it—of course, he might also try to take it away from her. That’s usually when we wind up turning the radio off. When the kids listen to CD’s, they sit with headphones on.

Only if we have to. If it’s the store or the kids. We don’t like being so wired up on the phone. We like email, the internet. The phone is an interruption, especially during family time. If I think back, though I haven’t always felt that way. Now that I think about it, Mike and I both had jobs where we had to be available by phone constantly. Now we hate it. If we can’t do it over email or in person, we don’t do it.

For long trips, we take a portable DVD player. I’m glad we don’t have one built into the car. The kids would want to listen to it on short trips, and that would be excessive. It hooks up to the cigarette lighter.

They share one. They have to agree on movies. I’ll remind them of that as we’re driving to the store—we always stop by there last before we leave on a long trip—and they pick out a couple of movies they’d both like, then a couple of movies that they like separately. They can watch those movies when we get to our destination.

Yeah. We might be going to visit one of my brothers, and it’s not convenient for the kids to watch a DVD there because their player is in the living room. Or, if we’re going on a short vacation—like Lake Chelan--maybe the place we’re staying only has a VCR or only one DVD player.

Yeah. One in the family room. And the kids each have one in their bedrooms.

They each have handheld gaming devices. Eric will use his on a short trip. He likes those role-playing games and first person shooter games. Kathy has a hand-me-down from Eric. She likes Disney, cartoons, things she’s familiar with.

Movies mostly, or TV.

I have to answer that two ways. As a video store owner, I’d say no. But as a parent and someone who loves movies, I’d like it if there were system like they have in hotels—an easy-to-navigate menu of choices. I really like the whole portable aspect of it. The cigarette lighter works OK. I’d probably prefer a proper docking station. But I wouldn’t look for a car with a built in DVD. Though, I guess if I found a car I really liked that happened to have one built in, I wouldn’t say no to a car just because of that.

GPS. We don’t have it, but I think it’s brilliant. Now, I might look for a next car that had a GPS. The one I saw—it belongs to a friend of mine—you enter the address it and it talks to you and tells you where to go. Brilliant!

Well, I liked my friend’s because the voice was comical and cute. But it might annoy me after a while. If I were by myself though, on the whole it would be a helpful thing.

We have CD’s. DVD’s. video games and VHS family films.

(laughter) Well, when they’re organized at all, they’re organized by me. The DVD’s are in categories: Mike and Me, Kathy, Eric. I put the most frequently used ones in front.

Yes. We like to know what they watch and listen to. Eric can change on a dime, though. In one day and out the other. Kathy is a little slower with change.

The CD’s are alphabetized. The mixes are at the end. For games, we keep the gaming systems together, like all the X-box games. Of course all this can last about a day, then some family member decides he wants one of something and messes it all up. Now that I think about it, you know what would be cool? To have the ability to have MP3 or Windows media player in the car, you know, copy it all to a computer and download it there. Right now, we’ve got six CD slots in the Mountaineer—the Cherokee had ten—so you have to know what you want to listen to before you go somewhere. And on a long trip, vs. a day trip, we might want to listen to different things. Like on a long trip, we might want to listen to, you know, concept album type music. Or something upbeat to keep us going. On a short trip, in town, something relaxing because other drivers can make you crazy.

Cars are a necessity—at least here where we live. If I lived in New York, I probably wouldn’t own a car at all. I don’t like to drive at all really.

I like to be a passenger. I like to gawk and catch everything around me. I like to look. You can’t really do that if you’re the one driving.

A couple of weeks ago, we drove up to Seattle for an Alaska cruise. Me, Mike, the kids, my mom and my aunt. Actually, we didn’t do the driving. We took a limo, but we drove with my mom to pick up my aunt and get the limo.

Space, first of all. We were six people plus luggage. We’d have had to take two cars and we didn’t want to do that. Also, the burden of driving. We all wanted to enjoy ourselves. And my aunt had never been in a limo.

What I liked best was the on board beverages, with ice and glasses. Plus, we were able to face each other and talk instead of “what, I can’t hear you” and trying to twist around in the seat. It was cool to sit and enjoy each other and talk. I also liked that we could close the panel with the driver. It would be nice to have one of those for the kids in our car!

Yes, because we couldn’t afford to fly. We went to Nebraska, the beach, Canada, San Francisco, and eastern Oregon. All this from southern Oregon.

We played roadside games. The one “A” and you have to find something that starts with “A.” Also the license plate game. See how many different license plates you see.

Not anything that I can recall. Mostly we just sat in the car. We had one of those wood paneled station wagons. My sister and I would sit in the way back. My brothers would sit in the back seat. My parents up front.

I’d like some kind of PDA in the car, like on my home computer. You could use it for everything from accessing the internet after you’ve seen a movie to look up one of the actors, to finding a route. I’d also like to see a crashless car. You know, where you program your destination into the car and it gets you there. I’m sure the technology companies and car companies could make that happen if they want to. I think the sticking point will be the road system—we’d need some kind of conversion—and that would be a function of the government. Mike and I have talked a lot about this. Think about how much safer everyone could be!

I’d also like to see a better designed cupholder. Why can’t I have a cupholder that keeps my hot drinks hot and my cold drinks cold?

Also, the seat warmers. Why not have them for all the seats? And you need to be able to regulate them, not just have them turn off and on. You should be able to have climate control for each person.

It would also be cool to have something like DVR in the car. You know, where you can download TV from the satellite. We have it at home and we love it. We can pause the TV, go do something else, and start it up later from the same spot. It can record 90 hours of TV. And you can manage the programming—like skipping commercials. So, I’d love to see that in the car, something like Tivo or DVR.

Also, cars now don’t have enough storage. The kids don’t have enough room for all their stuff by the time they get everything into the back seat. Kathy takes her blankee, stuffed puppy, gameboy and DVD’s. There’s no room!

We loved our two Jeeps. But I don’t care for the look of the new one. It’s too cartoonish. I guess they were trying to make it more aerodynamic looking, but it looks like something that should be in Disneyland.

Hard to say. We can spend 4-6 hours a day running around, errands, etc. But we’re not in the car the whole time. Really in the car? Maybe two hours a day. Errands, the store.

It’s different than it used to be. When the stock started roaring back in the mid-90’s, we said: “we should have whatever we want!” We got that out of our system, and market isn’t like it used to be, so we’re more conservative. We got tired of the cost, and the hassle of buying. Now we ask: what’s practical? I mean, a car only depreciates. So today, we prioritize other things first, like our kitchen remodel, family vacations, something for the house.

Here I paused to select a last question and she volunteered . . .

One thing you should know is that when Mike and I are in the car, we talk about the car.

We often have discussions about: “wouldn’t it be cool if . . .”

It’s very in-the-moment, so it’s hard to think of examples right now . . . OK, like the sunroof in the Mountaineer—if you open it all the way, it creates a hideous vacuum, We can’t drive like that. If our windows are up and the kids are down it does the same thing. Awful! And the Jeep had a centrally placed indicator that showed what direction we were going. But in the Mountaineer, only the driver can see it. So I have to ask Mike. I have a bad sense of direction, but I like to understand where I’m going, so now I have to ask Mike all the time. And the rear view mirror—it’s attached so close to the roof, you can only adjust it by grabbing the bottom and that’s harder than grasping the top and bottom.

It would be cool to use that in-car PDA for that. Just jot a note in the PDA. And we could send it right to the car company. Like you can send an error message to Microsoft. I’d also like to be able to make upgrades to my car like to a computer, say one or two years later. Like the CD player—we have a 2 disk and a 6 disk comes out. Or a new GPS system comes out. Or even a new cupholder. Everything would be like a modular unit in the car. Of course, I’d expect to pay for it.

People could sign up, indicating their interest in information about certain kinds of upgrades from the manufacturers. Plus, the dealers could have special notices and special deals. You could be notified via email, phone or checking a website

In the beginning, it would probably have to be done through the dealer, since that’s what we’re used to. But later, it could be any place that was licensed, approved, certified. But it needs to be safe. It needs to meet the same safety standard as when the car was driven off the showroom floor. But you could get it done at any certified place—your own mechanic, Shucks, Autozone. The manufacturer must certify them. They can’t just be Jo Blow.

I didn’t even realize I had all these ideas. I think that’s it!