More Mustang Musings

That was too much fun to hear everyone’s memories, I have to add a few more.

Joe mentioned all the speeding tickets, (that car was such a cop magnet) so let’s review the first one. Springville football game, on the way home I’m following Jerms and he heads the wrong way. So I pass him, get him turned around, and then just coasting down the hill into town I get nailed. Shouldn’t there have been some good karma coming my way?

I picked up Phil, the amazing concert pianist, straight from one of his practice sessions to head to Salt Lake for a volleyball or basketball game. What’s the first thing he does? Cranks up the already pretty loud, and not exactly classical, music.

How about Tim borrowing the car for a date, only to be stuck in the driveway for most of the evening cause the thing wouldn’t go in reverse. That car was ridiculously hard to shift and to be fair Tim drove it all the time. One time I even got stuck going through the dip just up the street from my house shifting into 2nd and my cousins all came out and mocked me for ages. I’m also 100% certain I never lost a race, unless it was because I couldn’t shift, or else it was my mom’s car.

I think a lot of kids thought I was a show off, sitting in the parking lot revving the engine. Truth was that thing never would run when cold. Jeff lived near the parade route and early one 4th of July decided to leave before he was blocked in for the day. About as soon as he got out of the driveway a cop pulled him over and said he knew Jeff was trouble when he heard him revving the engine so loud that early in the morning.

How about some random thoughts and a few lessons learned?

Carefree summer to me will always mean on the lake, sand court, or up the canyon, with a little Tom Petty for good measure.

Country music will always be the mainstay for this everyday guy, but sometimes you have to crank it up a notch or two.

I still find it enjoyable to throw on the monkey suit and some tunes and spend a few hours working on a car. Though the old rule that it’s not swearing if you’re working on a car still applies now and then.

Oakley glasses are required for all outdoor activities.

I’ll never lose that thrill of acceleration, but the Grand Prix certainly doesn’t quite throw you back like the stang did. Oh and I miss driving a stick shift everyday.

I’ll also be forever concerned about living, with four little boys, on the same street I used to fly down on my way home from school.

In high school I placed too much value on innate gifts and not nearly enough on effort, desire, and persistence.

High school is all to often all about external labels. Now, even though my external labels may be impressive like father, software developer, instead of just water skier extraordinaire, it’s still what’s on the inside that counts.

Good friends are invaluable. I spent one high school year in California and that was good to get me out of my shell and I met some great people, but the guys I was hanging out with weren’t always so good. Coming back home was the best thing for me. Phil’s right, it was an amazing group of people that we went to school with.

My hope is that in one sense I’m still the same guy I’ve always been, yet in other ways not even close.  Of course the gospel of Jesus Christ is much more important to me today and the biggest differentiator.

(temporary) Farewell to a high school icon

Over the last few months through email, blogs, some informal gatherings, and facebook I’ve gotten in touch with almost all of my old high school friends. It’s been great to learn about the things everyone has been up to for the last 15 years or so. There are now families, professionals, greatly accomplished and happy people, where once there were just young kids trying to find their way in life.

Of course all of this has taken me back to those days a little bit. I guess it’s not just me either because I lost count of how many conversations I’ve had along the lines of “it sure is fun to see everyone again, but a little weird at the same time.” My friend Tim said this recently: “welcome to facebook, the joy and bane of our online existence.” I’m not sure what it is about high school, but apparently we all feel a swirling of emotions from that time. For me this is especially baffling. I’m married to one of my closest friends from high school. We still live in the neighborhood we both grew up in (well that’s an understatement, we live next door to the house my wife grew up in). We see friends from high school all the time, including several of our neighbors and members of our ward.  It’s not like we left that world far behind, and yet I’ve still felt some of those swirling emotions come back: insecurities, aspirations, highs/lows, dating, experiences shared, lessons learned. I guess it’s just that transition time from child to adult that affected us so much.

Well in high school I had a really great car; a 67 Mustang, around which many of my memories are centered. What is it about us males and cars anyway? That car led to new friends in auto (where I spent way too much time keeping it running), fun dates, and lots of great drives, like up the canyon just to get a shake. When I left for the mission field I sold that car to my cousin, which led to plenty of adventure filled letters (I won’t mention the time he described taking my former girlfriend on a date to one of my favorite places, in my old car). Well my cousin called a few weeks ago and told me he was driving the stang around again and he had it running better than ever. Then shortly after that he called to wish me a happy birthday and I said bring the car over, we’ll take the kids for a ride. Sadly that’s when I learned the engine was gone, burned up on the freeway. I guess for now it’s had its last ride.

So for now farewell to the car, but thankfully not the friends or the memories.