When I married Janet 25 years ago, I became a bigamist. You see, I was already married to a 1966 Ford Mustang. 289 engine, factory air, white with a black vinyl roof, Candy Apple red interior. She was the first love of my life.

I wasn't always so attached to old cars, but my father helped me understand their joys. He and I worked on them together, starting with a 1967 Mercury Cougar I'd pay a great deal of money to have back. From there to a Plymouth Barracuda, then the Chevy Vega, the worst car Detroit ever produced.

But then we moved to the best, my Ford Mustang. My father and I worked on her together through college. He died shortly before Christmas in 1979; that year I opened his last present to me, a steering wheel cover for my Mustang. Some years later the wheel finally broke and I replaced it, but I kept that original wheel and his gift. It will hang on my garage wall for the rest of my life. And that's only because Janet won't let me mount it in our bedroom.

Not all of you will understand such devotion to a car and its memories. According to a Mercedes Benz survey, 36 percent of Americans love their car; 26 percent talk to their car; 23 percent view their cars as members of the family. The other 77 percent of you are wrong. You need someone to do for you what my father did for me. If you work on one, getting grease under your fingernails, you get attached. As the counselors say, acting precedes feeling. If you don't feel love for your spouse, do loving things and feelings will follow.

Hold that thought, and walk with me through the last scenes in Matthew's Gospel.