Paul Hinkley told me that Pontiacs were going away.

I drive a Pontiac.

I asked, “Paul, what if it goes away while I’m driving it?”

I pictured myself sitting in the middle of the road after my car had disappeared.

Paul and Chuck Hinkley have been selling me cars and trucks for years—mostly Chevrolets, but some Pontiacs. Paul assured me that my Pontiac was not going to disappear. He told me that the Pontiac division of General Motors Corporation plans to cease production. Known for making sporty, muscle cars like the Firebird, the first Pontiac was a 1926 6-cylinder roadster named the Chief of the Sixes.

I should have known this would happen. My fortune cookie at the China Smorgasbord read, “No more Pontiacs for you.”

No more Pontiacs? When Paul told me that I felt like Wile E. Coyote must feel after he’s fallen off a cliff.

I remember being envious of a fellow I knew during my teen years. I envied him because he had a Pontiac GTO. It was cool. GTO was an abbreviation for “chick magnet.”

A friend of my father drove a Bonneville. I thought of that model as the poor man’s Cadillac.

I learned to drive in a 1953 Pontiac Chieftain. It was a black car with a straight-8 engine and a hood ornament representing the head of Chief Pontiac.

My father drove a Pontiac. I drive a Pontiac. Have you become your father or your mother yet? Don’t worry if you haven’t. You will.

The car I currently drive is not a Chief of the Sixes, a Chieftain, a Bonneville, a GTO, or a Firebird, but it has reliably carried me over many hills and down into countless valleys. The wheels on my Pontiac have gone round and round. We’ve traveled many miles over both good and bad roads. It has been a very good car. It’s well behaved, polite, quiet, and keeps to itself.

I whined to my neighbor Crandall. He said, “I may live in the fast food lane, but at our reunion, I was the only one who could still fit into the car I drove when I was in high school. I used to be jealous of my brother Cranston. He got to play with the good hubcap when we were kids. My mother had freed it from a Pontiac. I don’t drive a Pontiac, I drive a Ford Fossil with a 30/30 guarantee. It was guaranteed for 30 feet or 30 seconds, whichever came first. I had it repaired at Gearhead Gary’s Garage and Gary gave me a 50/50 guarantee. If the car breaks in two, I get to keep both halves. I have a free-range fossil. It’s never been cooped up in a garage. The air conditioning is 2 by 60.”

“Don’t you mean 4 by 60 air conditioning? Four windows down and 60 miles per hour?” I asked.

“No, it’s 2 by 60. Two of the windows won’t roll down. The Fossil has a four-on-the-floor and a three-on-the tree, but it’s low in carbs. It has a windshield. I like a car with a windshield so I can see what the weather is like. There’s so much dirt on that car, I could plant corn on it. I could make it as clean as a whistle, but I can whistle without a clean car. The only problem I have with my Fossil is that I never like the lane it’s in. I did have a bad car day recently. I went to a parking lot and tried to open the door with my key. It wouldn’t open. It was the wrong car. I didn’t know they made two cars like mine. I had wondered what joker had put a snarling Rottweiler in my car. I went to the Poor Man’s Bank and tried to get a loan for a land yacht — it was a near-debt experience. No Pontiacs, eh? Car executives should all become crash test dummies. I trust someone will get a huge bonus for saving money by dumping Pontiac. I hope this move doesn’t cause road rage. Road rage is what causes the highways to break out in potholes. If there are no Pontiacs, what kind of red cars will young blonde people use to pass me as if I’m backing up?”

The cars we have owned are one of the measures of time. We remember when events happened because we recall what vehicle we were driving at the time. The next car I buy will not be a Pontiac. Maybe I’ll buy a Packard or a Rambler.

What has four wheels and flies? A Pontiac. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.

When Pontiacs are outlawed, only outlaws will have Pontiacs.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.