If an automobile could take Vows, then the Toyota Rav4, one of the house cars at the pre-novitiate house in Houston, Texas, should be given perpetual vows. This car has attended almost every Carmelite event for the past ten years.

	Father Brian Henden, O.Carm., heads out for one last drive.

When the pre-novitiate moved from Washington, DC, to Houston, Texas, in 1998 one of the students that year donated his car, a Toyota Rav4, to the Order. It became one of the community’s house cars. Being a new car, 1998 model year, it became the preferred car for any long-distance trips—and it has taken a lot of those.

At the end of each pre-novitiate year, the students in Houston then move to the novitiate, which is in Middletown, New York. The least expensive way to get the guys’ stuff to the novitiate, along with those wanting to attend, was to drive. So a hitch was installed on that Toyota and a small U-Haul trailer was rented. The trip is a long one, about 30-hours one-way, or two lonnnnng days of driving. Every year since then the Toyota has made the trip. And anyone wanting a cheap way to get to Middletown could get in for the ride, and quite a few Carmelites over the years have done that.

If that weren’t enough, each year the pre-novices visit the Carmelite parish in Torreon, Mexico. The Toyota has made that trip a half-dozen times. On one of those trips the Houston newspaper had an article that the United Nations had just declared a city in Mexico, Zaccatecas, a ‘World Heritage City’ claiming that it is the most beautiful city in North America. We had to see this for ourselves so we made the side-trip from Torreon. And it was on this trip that we all saw an actual flying pig! What happened is that we were on a tight curve on the highway and a pick-up truck with a large pig in the back was approaching. That pick-up was going much too fast and as it neared us, the pig sailed out of the back, heading right for our windshield. We all screamed, but the flying pig just missed us and landed on the side of the road. It got up and ran off, and the pick-up drove on, probably never realizing their pig had been thrown out.

When Gerard Power was ordained in 1999, his first Mass was scheduled in his hometown of Admiral’s Beach in Newfoundland. The Provincial at the time, Father Leo McCarthy, O.carm., called to see if I could attend that Mass (since I was on an academic calendar, with summers ‘off’). I called a classmate, Father Brian Henden, O.Carm., and asked if he wanted to go. He said, “sure,” so we drove out of Houston heading for Newfoundland. At Bar Harbor, Maine, we (and the car) took the four-hour ferry ride across the Bay of Fundy into Nova Scotia and then drove to the capital, Halifax. The ferry ride from Halifax to Newfoundland (which is an island) is a fourteen-hour trip, so we decided to leave the car in Halifax, and flew that last bit. The trip from Houston to Halifax (not including the four-hour ferry ride) is about 2500 miles, one-way.

The pre-novitiate program is leaving Houston and is re-locating to Chicago, so this is the last year we needed to make that Houston to Middletown drive. The students said that the Toyota was now too old and had too many miles (220,000) to make the trip, but I claimed that we couldn’t break the tradition—that the car had to go this one last time. Again, a U-Haul trailer was rented and away we went. Well, old faithful again proved faithful and put another glitch-free 3200 miles on the odometer. Now it’s time to retire her. Having attended every profession of vows, and every ordination in the last ten years, maybe we should declare this car an honorary Carmelite? And maybe a retirement community out there wants a car with a bit over 220K on the odometer?