Do you ever remember something from your past and think it was super awesome? You know like when you hear an older person reminisce about how cheap gas was back in the day, or that they remember a much simpler time...but you think to yourself, "Yeah...but there you went to school in a one room house with no air conditioning!"
Or something like that. My point is that all of us at one time or another remember this fabulous thing, but when we go back and try to recreate it, we find it's lost it's appeal. Now back in high school and college I drove around in my awesome car. If you knew me in high school or college, you probably knew my car. It wasn't that I tried to merge my identity with it, it just happened that way. I couldn't go anywhere without someone spotting the Impala. I love my car. My great-grandmother purchased her in 1968 and said I could have it when I was just 14. [I KNOW RIGHT! Way too young to drive.] My dad and I spent quite a bit of time fixing it up. Just a few weeks before I could drive it home a storm blew my grandparents carport down on it crushing its front fender. We got that fixed too.
Fast forward to 2008. 2 weeks after Rach and I got married I got in a wreck which totaled her precious car. We searched for cars in our price range, but to no avail. We got the idea to fix up the impala and get her running again! I was pumped! Elated even! Before we knew we were moving to Florida we began getting her ready for the open road. Finally this week we put the last touches on it to drive to where we live.
It was a thrill driving it through downtown Tampa to Brandon. When we got home I had Rachel get in the car to ride with me. I thought, what a better way to celebrate our new car than with ice cream. We headed out to our favorite 'lil mom & pop and sat in line at the drive thru! I was excited. For the first time ever I got to drive my car with my wife by my side. We got the usual looks from people. One old man inquired about all sorts of specific specs of the car. Rachel said, "This is awesome...it's like dating a model, you're cool because of who you're with." I'd like to be clear and note, that I was not the model she was referring to...it was the car. We finally finish ordering when the car begins to overheat. I had the brilliant idea to shut off the car while we waited for the car ahead of us to leave. Unfortunately, it had to be jumped back to life.
Then the battery turned out to be bad. [The new one we just installed on Thursday.] Then it drove fine to and from church last night. My dad suggested I have the alternator checked. I did that today on my day off, finding that it was bad. No biggie, it's under lifetime warranty, so I'll just switch the new one out. This worked good until I started the car, belts broke, scared the autozone worker...and in the interest of reducing a gigantic story into a tiny one...I spent 4 hours at autozone. I finally get the car drivable and head home. Less than one block away, the gas pedal sticks [at full throttle] and I have to use the brakes and put it into park to avoid careening out of control.
My point is that sometimes it's easy to wish for things to be the way things were. I'm so thankful for my "new/old" car...but it's easy to gloss over things in your mind and not remember the tough stuff too. On the upside the car is running good now. I'm looking forward to driving it again in the morning!
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