I can't believe it's been 8 years since I bought my Mazda Protegé in March 2001. It only has 72,000 miles on it, an average of only 9,000 miles per year. I've had a lot of good times with my car over the years. One of the oldest memories I have is when I ran it into a square hitch on the back of a car in front of me. Unfortunately that was when it was less than 3 months old and it's had that blemish ever since.

I also used to drive it to and from Abilene when I was in my freshman year of college and I remember listening to music like Pearl Jam and Led Zeppelin, which I rarely listen to any more. My Mom would always ask if I went "Zoom Zoom" all the way home, since that was Mazda's slogan. It also snowed one time when I was in Abilene and I took several pictures of my car in its first snow.

I remember driving Troy and the rest of our small group of friends around town just to goof around. I also had a pair of green dice hanging from the rear view mirror for the longest time.

I remember when I bought new Pirelli tires and when my parents gave me a new stereo and speakers for my car. It was much much better than the factory system.

I remember when I found the side of it scraped by someone in the parking lot at my first apartment in east Fort Worth. I think I also backed it into a yellow pole at my apartment, but that was easily buffed off.

One time Troy was replacing the battery and he lost one of the screws somewhere in the front of the car. We were at our apartment in Irving and there are speed bumps in the parking lot, so I drove over a few at a slow speed hoping it would fall out. Troy followed behind me on foot and kept looking for the screw, but to no avail. Then I had the idea to drive faster over the last speed bump leading up to our parking space and the screw fell out.

And then, probably my favorite memories of it were made when we drove it all the way to Seattle and stopped at some great places along the way. We crammed so much stuff in the trunk and back seat of my car, it was crazy. Once we arrived in Seattle, we had to get new Washington plates and put them on.

My Mazda has been a great little car for a long time. I haven't had any major problems with it and have really only had to pay for oil changes and the normal maintenance items. We have no plans to replace it any time soon. In fact we'll probably keep it until it basically falls apart, which hopefully is a long time from now. I love my Protegé and look forward to making more memories with it in the future.