(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.