Walt made me a really nice deal and the car was in perfect condition.  Another Cougar.  This one was a bit more luxury oriented than my '69 as the Cougar was on its way to becoming the Disco set transportation of choice.

But I really liked driving this car.  I was not particularly fast with the strangled 302 V8 and automatic.  But it had a nice deep sound to the exhaust and a really comfortable ride.  And it was red!  My second favorite car color after black.

But the lovely Cougar was short lived.  At the time I worked for Computer Associates and I often had to travel to New York for meetings.  On one such trip I went to bed in my hotel and woke up bright and early to get the office.  But I could not find Cougar!  During the night some scoundrel had absconded my cat.  The lot was full of Cadillacs and Mercedes, why did they choose this high mileage relatively cheap car?  I guess someone need the parts from an '85 Cougar.

I had to rent a car to drive home to NJ.  It is sick feeling when your car is stolen.  You walk around the parking lot looking lost for a while.  Then when it finally sinks in you call the police.  What they do is they drive you around the lot looking for your car.  Lots of drunk hotel patrons apparently report their cars stolen when they forget where they parked. 

The whole stolen car thing was a sickening experience.  My briefcase was inside the car.  Did CA's competition steal the car to get CA software development secrets?   I wish them luck with that.  What they did get was a $500 plane fare credit that I had recently earned for walking off an overbooked flight.   Oh well, I do not like to fly anyway.

One bright note is that the insurance company paid me more than I paid Walt for the car.

Goodbye red Cougar.