Many families have a trademark that is found along with the name that binds them together; a trademark, whether large or small, impressive or not impressive, that serves as a symbol that is recognized when exploring the past and present of the family’s history. The Rockefeller family’s trademark is oil, the Hilton family has the hotel, and the McDonald family is known for the hamburger. But my family, the Jernigan family’s symbolism, can be found beneath the leather seats of a white 1994 Buick Station Wagon with wooden side panels and 16 years of loyalty.

This symbolism was born in the rickety confines of my dad’s GM Oldsmobile in the early hours of July 11, 1994; the hours of a mid-summer day when the heat in Mobile has not yet reached the unbearable stickiness that it is well known for. My dad, frantically urging his car of many years to keep moving, promised the woman in the passenger’s seat next to him that if they safely made it to Springhill Memorial Hospital without breaking down, he would get rid of “this piece of junk” and swap it for a car that was reliable enough for a family as fast as the few cars on that lonely pre-dawn road were passing him. This woman, my mother, had gone into labor just a few hours earlier, and as that shaky Oldsmobile held her and her soon-to-be baby boy in its undependable grasp as that hot southern sun began to rise over Mobile, the only thoughts that crossed through her mind were about her baby.

Sure enough, they reached the hospital in one piece and I was born the next day. Sticking to his word, my dad traded his junky Oldsmobile for a sparkling Buick Station Wagon that was right off the lot the week after that. Little did he know he was introducing a new family member that would be handed down during the next 16 years and counting. Little did he know it would still be sitting in our driveway as I’m typing these very words.

Now I’m not much of a car professional, and I’m the wrong person to ask when it comes to the layout and mechanics of what’s under the hood of one, but I do know the feeling that I get when I walk out into my driveway on an eventless summer day and just sit in the Buick my dad bought those many years ago. It’s not a feeling that’s overwhelming. It’s not a feeling that anybody outside our family would pick up on. It’s just a strong feeling of nostalgia as I lounge back in the driver’s seat and look around at the tan interior that holds so many memories.

After my dad picked it up off a sweltering car lot that late July week after I was born, it became my mom’s car to use for taking my older brother of four years back and forth to pre-school. Ironically, the reason my dad considered the Buick a good car for this was because it was one of the few models that held a Corvette engine underneath its white hood. With this engine (along with the low center of gravity and wide body of the car), my mom would be able to pass the tractors and slower trucks that trotted along the two-lane country roads of Magnolia Springs quickly and safely, as the late bell of my brother’s pre-school neared its scheduled time to ring.

After my brother had long since moved onto elementary school and my family moved to Gulf Shores, the Buick was passed onto my dad. He quickly fell in love with the comfortable cruising of the station wagon. “You say it has a Corvette engine?!” The men that came into my dad’s office would ask in disbelief after he bragged on his new car. “Yeah!” He would say in that high pitched tone that would mean, “Why? You don’t believe me?” They never believed him.

Approximately 11 years after this, the Buick was passed onto my brother, Kemp, when he turned 16, although he wasn’t necessarily happy about this at first. But when fixing the old family car up with a shag carpet and wooden blinds in the back seats, he seemed to manage. Soon after, he also fell in love with the vehicle.

Now, with my brother at college, the family wagon has been handed down to me, and I couldn’t imagine myself driving anything else. When I’m driving down the beach road with its windows rolled down and my hands holding the steering wheel, decorated with the tan leather that is falling off from the wearing down of time, I know that this automobile is not just a car, but a family member that will be included in the memories of a large chunk of our family’s experiences and my entire childhood. And as I rev that Corvette engine and look out at the stark white dunes, I know it’s not going anywhere, anytime soon.

Basch Jernigan is a junior at Gulf Shores High School. He welcomes comments and suggestions at: basch@gulftel.com