There's a strong sentimentality attached to this '89 Ranger. I bought it new in '89 and drove it and loved it for many years. All three kids drove it. Sara did her daughter thing and took it off to Harding her Junior year -- leaving me the Geo Prism she had picked out and been in love with a year earlier. She did return it upon graduation. John drove it some -- including the time a woman ran a light and bashed the side in -- but never as "his" vehicle. But then it would take many posts to just list all the vehicles that John drove over the years -- and to briefly describe their fates. Just to show that change is possible, he has owned his current vehicle for six years. So as I was comfortably settling back into the Ranger, Mark followed his sister's example. We had found him a red Geo Metro to drive which he liked really well at the time, but sure enough, after a year of driving it, he somehow talked me into letting him have the little red truck and I ended up driving the Geo for several years. That was in high school, and he ended up driving it all through college. He got to be good buddies with a mechanic in Abilene, mostly because he took the truck to some places it was not designed to go on fishing adventures. True to his word, he returned it upon graduation.
My intent was to restore it and drive it some. It wasn't so much that I wanted to drive it, just that it represented a lot of memories and I couldn't part with it. So it had a new home in the driveway. Too many times to count, people stopped by and offered to buy it -- only to be told it wasn't for sale. Still it sat.
The happy resolution began when my new neighbor, a young guy with a nice family, moved in. He eventually told me that if I ever wanted to sell it, he would like to buy it. That in itself didn't do the trick, but it did plant the seed. It took the city threatening action if I didn't move it to get me moving. I still couldn't bear to sell it -- how do you put a price on memories? But I did manage to make a deal with my neighbor that made us both happy. I gave him the truck, and he lets me look at it. I still have my memories, and he is well along the way of restoring it. In fact, I think it's going camping soon.
The Little Red Truck
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