I’ve been arrested and spent time in jail.  OK, I’ve now admitted it and it feels good to let go of the burden I’ve carried all these years.  Hopefully you’ll agree I’ve paid my debt to society in full and despite the disappointment I’m sure this revelation must cause, I humbly beg your forgiveness.

Why am I coming clean now?  Well, I’ve been sorting through some of my parents’ old papers and I came across the indictment.  I swear, they saved everything.  But it was more than a little disconcerting to find evidence of my criminal past tucked away amongst the crudely drawn cards and elementary school photos.

In the interest of full disclosure, I’ll share the text of the charges levied against me:

“On or about July 4, 1973, at 18900 Gothard Street, Huntington Beach, County of Orange, [John McCrarey] did willfully, unlawfully and maliciously disturb the peace and quiet of Mrs. Hal Westley Shirey by offensive conduct, and the use of vulgar, profane, and indecent language, in a loud and boisterous manner, in violation of Section 415 of the Penal Code of California.”

I was found guilty, fined, and released with time served (about 4 hours in a concrete holding cell).  No one appeared to testify against me other than the arresting officer.  But the judge kept talking about some woman I’d never even heard of, a Miss Demeanor.  (bada bing).

Now, as bad as those charges sound, I was not completely without justification for my behavior.  Here’s the rest of the story:

It was Independence Day and my girlfriend, Gail Weed (yes, real name), and I were planning on enjoying the Huntington Beach 4th of July parade.  Gail was driving (she had a sweet ’65 Mustang Coupe).  Finding a place to park was a bitch, and for some reason they had blocked off Gothard street with a single barrier saying “road closed”.  We observed several cars driving around the barrier and I told Gail to follow them as there may be a place to park down there.

So, after bypassing the barrier we went down a slight hill and at the bottom were several police cars.  And they were issuing tickets to everyone who had taken the detour.  Yes my friends, it was a classic trap.  We were set up like bowling pins.  Back in those days I had a bit of a temper, and I was pretty pissed about being suckered in such a fashion, especially on America’s birthday!  After the girlfriend received her ticket and we were driving away I expressed my opinion about the whole situation by leaning out the window, extending my middle finger, and shouting in “a loud and boisterous” manner FUCK YOU PIGS!

Apparently the First Amendment doesn’t cover the heartfelt expression of speech in this fashion.  We hadn’t gotten a mile down the road before the police helicopter was hovering overhead.  And then a cruiser was behind us with red lights flashing (they were red, not blue, in those days).  We pulled over and were then surrounded by no less than three police cars!  Shortly thereafter the cop who had issued our ticket arrived and announced “yeah, that’s the sonofabitch”.

I was pulled from Gail’s Mustang and was required to answer a series of questions.  One of them that I remember was “do you have any scars, tattoos, or other identifying marks?”  I responded that I had a Battleship tattooed on my ass, and when I shit, it sinks.  That seemed to really make him even more angry, and the next thing I knew I was being thrown up against the the police car, my arms were roughly yanked behind my back, and they slapped the handcuffs on me.  Then it was off to the jailhouse.  For the record, I don’t really have a tattoo.

Dad came and bailed me out a few hours later, and he was even madder than the cop had been.  Which is why I found myself living on my own at the tender age of 17.  But that’s a story for another day.

Anyway, keeping things in perspective, I take solace from knowing that there were numerous occasions of certain other acts in which I regularly engaged that the state deems criminal and for which I was never arrested.  So it all balances out in the end, doesn’t it?

Who, me?

Before Government service

After Government Service.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

So, today I’m being honored with a retirement luncheon at Hartell House (the CG’s mess).  I’m never all that comfortable being in the spotlight, but these milestones in life seem to demand some ceremony so I’ll make the best of it and be gracious and appreciative.  Since it’s also expected that I make some remarks I’ve been thinking about that as well.  I was going to write down some talking points, but I’ve decided to just wing it instead.  I can’t help but think of it as akin to giving your own eulogy, but I’m going to try and keep it upbeat and hopefully I’ll avoid getting emotional.  Letting go of my job is in some ways like parting with an old friend.  I know it’s time to say goodbye, but that doesn’t make it any easier. 

So, I had some odd jobs here and there, some more steady than others.  But my career in Federal service began on October 27, 1976 when I took the oath of office and became a letter carrier with the United States Postal Service in Anaheim, California.  The starting pay was $5.25 an hour, which wasn’t that good even back then.  The job did have pretty good benefits though, chief among them from my perspective was the ability to retire at age 55. 

Well, here I am 55 years old.  So I guess it could be said that with my retirement I have now achieved the goal I set for myself 34 years ago.  But I did have some fun and some adventures along the way.  I’m not sure there is anything you can say upon reaching the retirement milestone that hasn’t been said before or that isn’t a tired cliché.  But yeah, if life is a journey then your working life is a journey within that journey.  And here’s some of my story. 

Working as a mailman was actually a pretty cool job.  Except for the dogs and supervisors with unreasonable expectations.  I carried pepper spray for the dogs and became a union steward to deal with the supervisors, so it worked out ok I guess.  A couple of years after starting with the Postal Service I could afford to have a second child, and so with some assistance from my then-wife, I acquired a son to complement my daughter. 

Now, back in those days I used to really enjoy getting out of the city for some camping out.  The in-laws owned some property in Arizona that we used for this purpose and the thought occurred that wouldn’t it be great to actually LIVE there.  So, I dropped in for a visit with the Postmaster of Prescott, Arizona and as fate would have he was looking to hire a letter carrier.  So, next thing I knew I was packing up the U-Haul truck and making the big move. 

Living and working in Arizona was like a dream come true.  I bought my first house, became president of the local union, and founded a softball association.  I was living the American dream for sure and figured I was set for life.  Ah, but things do change, don’t they?  They wife and I split up and I found myself with custody of a 5 year old and a 3 year old.  And being a single parent was really, really hard work.  I’d get up a six, feed and dress the kids, drop them at daycare, carry my mail route, pick up the kids, feed and bathe them, collapse in exhaustion, then get up and do it all over again the next day.  After a few months of this routine I cried “uncle!”.  Actually, I cried “mother” as in, mom I need some help. 

Now, my parents had retired to a small hobby farm in Poteau, Oklahoma.  The nearest city of any size was Fort Smith, Arkansas.  And after a meeting with the HR Director, Ms. Bobbie McLaine, my transfer request was approved. You know, there was some culture shock when I first moved here to Korea.  But really not as much as I experienced as a California city boy living in the rural south.  I think the natives were as wary of me as I was of them, and the first year there was the loneliest of my life.  Everyday I would berate myself as I shouldered my mail satchel and walked my route in stifling heat and humidity.  I considered moving to Arkansas the absolute worst mistake I had ever made. The kids were thriving though having quickly adjusted to life on the farm.  

So, I made it through that first summer.  And as bad as an Arkansas summer was, the winter was worse.  I was now spending my days walking up and down icy pathways and porch steps.  And falling on my ass with alarming frequency.  Even when the weather was good, the work had become routine and mind-numbingly boring. It was becoming harder and harder to imagine myself carrying the mail until I reached retirement eligibility. And so I started applying for some management jobs.  Of course, I wasn’t really qualified for anything but that didn’t stop me.  There was a job open in the safety office and I figured anyone could do that!  So, one day Bobbie McLaine, the HR Director came down to the workroom and asked me if I wanted to ride with her to a scheduled labor-management meeting in Fayetteville.  Seeing as how I was a union official and I didn’t want to be viewed as sucking up to management, I declined her offer.  A little later, Dixie (the HR Director’s secretary) came to see me and she said “John, don’t you want that safety job?  Bobbie wanted you to ride with her so she could talk with you about the job”.  Oops!  Well, I made sure I was seated next to Bobbie at lunch.  And I got the job! 

Here’s the thing about Fort Smith–it was a pretty small pond.  Which made it pretty easy to be a big fish.  In addition to safety, I was soon tasked with being the labor relations representative.  And then I took on the responsibilities of being the Public Affairs Officer.  And pretty much anything else that needed to be done when there wasn’t a body to do it.  You really learn a lot that way and I seemed to have a knack for getting it right, at least most of the time. 

Now, I’ll confess to having an ego.  And I got thinking I just might need a slightly larger pond to hold it.  Of all my duties, I enjoyed labor relations the most so I started applying for every vacancy I could find.  I finally scored an interview in Charleston, South Carolina.  So, I flew out there and found the city quite charming and to my liking.  I thought I handled the interview well and afterwards one of the panel members, Jack Mabe, asked to speak with me.  He said I have your application for a job on my staff in Columbia and I’d like to interview you for that while you are here.  Naturally, I agreed. 

Now, I didn’t have any “real” LR experience other than the ad hoc stuff I was doing in Fort Smith and my union background.   The Charleston job was a small step up, but the Columbia job would constitute a huge promotion.  The interview with Jack didn’t take long–ever done an arbitration?  No.  How about an EEO case?  No.  What about MSPB?  I didn’t even know what that was.  He then asked a final question–which job would I prefer, Charleston or Columbia.  Well, what could I say?  I told him that I really liked Charleston and I thought that with my level of experience it was a better fit.  He thanked me and I left. When I made it back to my office in Fort Smith there was a message from Jack Mabe offering me the job in Columbia.  I accepted and moved to a city I had never seen.  I asked Jack later why he picked me and he said because you didn’t know anything so you wouldn’t have to unlearn any bad habits. 

Well, I was definitely way in over my head those first few months in Columbia.  But Jack was a great mentor and I learned how to do things his way which as it so happens was also the right way.  I gained confidence and competence and starting having enough success that I was getting noticed by some higher ups.  This led to an opportunity to be detailed as the Director of HR in Roanoke, VA and to doing some arbitration’s for areas outside of Columbia. 

And then came a major Postal Service reorganization.  One of those downsizing efforts to remove unneeded layers of management that seem to take place in organizations every few years.  All I was told for sure was that my Columbia job would no longer exist and that hopefully “something” would be found for me somewhere.  It was a tough time that drug on for several tortuous months.  In the end I wound up with a promotion working for the newly created Mid-Atlantic Area (one of 10 reporting directly to USPS HQ).  The best part was I could remain in Columbia because the job was traveling throughout the mid-Atlantic states doing arbitration, EEO and MSPB hearings! 

It was my dream job.  I was on the road 3 weeks out of the month, but in those days air travel was not such a bitch.  I really liked being the hired gun that came into town to handle the toughest cases.  And I won enough of them to gain a reputation for excellence.  I did this for several years and then my boss, Barry Swinehart, got promoted to the Area Director of HR.  He said he hoped I’d be applying for his old job as the Area LR manager.  I told him I already had the perfect job and lived in a perfect city and that I had no interest in living in the DC area (Arlington, VA).  Later he asked me to at least come up for a detail in the job.  I again declined. 

Then one day he called and said “John, I need you to do me a favor”.  Well, I know enough to know that when your boss says that, he ain’t asking.  And so I became the Mid-Atlantic Area Manager of Labor Relations.  It was the biggest job I ever had.  Responsible for 80,000 employees in 7 states (and DC).  Six people working for me and four angry postal unions on my ass every day.  

There was never a quiet moment and I worked long hours.  But it was a challenge and I think it really helped me learn a lot about leadership.  Or maybe I just got lucky and hired good people to work for me.  Either way, I enjoyed a fair amount of success and I was slotted into the Executive Development Program.  I was at the top of my game and the sky was limit. 

Or not.  I’ve never been much for playing politics.  And when HQ came out with some dumb-ass policy or program, I expressed my opinion accordingly.  Suffice to say I did not endear myself to the HQ VP for Labor Relations.  And then Barry Swinehart retired.  And I was deemed “not ready” to be his successor in the Postal Executive Service.  So, I took a detail assignment as the Director of HR in Little Rock, Arkansas.  It was a little like going home again and I did enjoy my time there.  I was offered the job on a permanent basis, but I decided my future lay elsewhere.  So, I took a job with the U.S. Department of Education. 

The ED is the smallest of the cabinet level Departments with just over 5,000 employees.  I was the number 2 in LR there.  I had a fraction of my previous responsibilities but a 25% pay increase, so I went for the money.  And spent four years being bored out of my mind.  Oh there were moments when I engaged in massive battles with the union on the size of cubicles (I’m not kidding!), but otherwise I was phoning it in. 

Turns out money is not everything.  I started applying for jobs that would get me out of DC and the DC mindset.  I was hoping for a job in Iraq but the Corps of Engineers apparently weren’t looking for old fat guys at the time.  I did get an offer from the Eighth Army in Korea and I jumped on it!  I had no clue what I was in for but it turned out to be the best place I’ve ever worked or lived.  You can read six years of Long Time Gone archives if you want to relive my adventures here, but I wouldn’t recommend it. 

And so this is where my career journey will end on December 31.  It was an incredible ride.  And although I might have done some things differently, I wouldn’t change a thing.  If you get my meaning.  Anyway, I’d best be getting ready to do my retirement gig.   

KaraLynne Pope (the redhead in the back).  An Arizona girlfriend.  Actually more than that. She was a crossroads.

It occurs to me that occasionally in life we make a seemingly insignificant decision that ultimately changes everything.  These changes I suppose can be good or bad or maybe both.  But mainly they represent a change in direction.   A new road to a different destiny if you will.  I’ve not lived a planned or well-ordered life by any means, but even by those standards meeting KaraLynne and everything that has subsequently flowed from that event has taken me places beyond my wildest imaginings.

By my reckoning it would have been August of 1981.  I drove up to Flagstaff, Arizona to participate in a softball tournament.  I was camping out with my teammates at a campground adjacent to the ballpark.  It was a Friday night.  Around about 8 p.m. we did a headcount and determined we were one player short of a team.  So, it was decided to head into Flagstaff proper, find a bar, and try to a recruit a player for our Saturday game.  I initially declined to participate in the quest, saying I would stay and tend to our camp.  But as the car was pulling away I impulsively changed my mind and shouted “wait a minute, I’m coming with you!”  Nothing has been the same since.

We pulled into a country-western honkytonk called the Pioneer Club.  There was a live band and it was crowded.  Although I had decided to come to the bar, I was not going to participate in the recruiting effort.  So, I ordered up a beer and looked for a place to sit, finally spying an open spot on a bench along the wall.  After plopping down a woman I hadn’t even noticed said “I’m sorry, that seat is taken”.  I grinned and said, “ok, I’ll just sit here till they get back”.  And that’s how I met KaraLynne.

It turns out the seat was not taken (or whomever never came back for it) and we sat and chatted for an hour or so.  I recall her being irreverent, witty, and funny as hell.  Eventually my teammates completed the recruitment mission and it was time to go.  I invited KaraLynne out to see us play the next day, and she was non-committal in her response.  So, when she showed up at the ballpark with her friend Edie, I was really jazzed.

They stayed and watched us play until we were eliminated from the competition late in the afternoon.  I offered to take her and Edie to dinner as a reward for being such good fans and they accepted.  Over the course of dinner I learned that KaraLynne was a recent graduate of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and that Edie had been one of her professors. KaraLynne was entering the graduate program at Idaho State University in Pocatello in a couple of weeks.  She lived in Phoenix and was in Flagstaff visiting her friends before departing for Idaho.

After dinner Edie said her goodbyes, but KaraLynne agreed to stay awhile longer.  We drove out to Mormon Lake, looked up at the stars, and talked until sunrise.  And then we fell in love.

So, the next two years were a whirlwind.  I’d do the all night drive up to Pocatello to spend the weekend once a month or so.  We had spring break, summer vacation, and Christmas recess.  Lots of letters (this was before email if you can imagine that) and huge phone bills.  I became good friends with Edie and another NAU professor, Judy, and we spent a lot of time together skiing and just hanging out.  So, it was a pretty exciting life in many respects.

Also a hard life.  Hard, because I had custody of Renee and Kevin and single parenthood is every bit as tough as they say it is.  Hard because the woman I loved was most of the time far away from me.  Hard because KaraLynne’s teenage brother died tragically following minor surgery.  Hard because I sent the kids to stay with my parents on the farm in Oklahoma.  And hard because in the end KaraLynne broke my heart.

I’ll get over it eventually, it’s only been 30 years.  Of course, I’m being facetious.  Mostly.

But here’s the thing, loving and losing happens all the time. In the grand scheme of things what matters is what you learn. And what is important is what you do with those lessons.  And that is really my point in telling this story.

Because by making friends with university professors, I came to understand that my lack of education did not equate to a lack of intelligence.  I gained the confidence that I could hold my own with anyone intellectually and so I went back to school.  It took me ten years, but I earned my Bachelor’s degree in 1991.

In my sorrow, I sold everything I owned and moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas.  Initially, I thought I had made the biggest mistake of my life in leaving Arizona.  But in time, my work as the union shop steward caught the attention of the HR Director. Which put me in the position to earn my first promotion and begin my career in management.

The kids got to experience the joys of a rural farm life surrounded by people who loved them, like my mom and grandma Pernie.

I learned to country dance and had a great time being single and experiencing the true charm of Southern women (a story in itself).

So, do I ever wonder what would have happened if I had stayed behind at the campground?  No, not really. At the time I wasn’t even aware that I was making a life-altering choice. Still, the words of Robert Frost resonate:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Well, if Neil Young can write a song about his car, I suppose it’s not so over-the-top for me to devote a blog post to the subject.  Although I’m taking more of an Julio Iglesias approach (more or less):

To all the cars I’ve owned before,

That carried me from door to door

You know you were the most, I dedicate this post

To all the cars I’ve owned before…

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

So, it would have been in the fall of 1971 if memory serves.  I was 16 years old and spoiling for my own set of wheels.  Of course I was pathetically underemployed, and my savings from a summer job at the car wash amounted to a meager $150.  Which was what I paid for a 1963 Ford Falcon station wagon similar to the one pictured above.  Except mine had curtains in the windows and a Ford decal on the side.  It was a piece a crap, belched smoke and burned oil.  But it was mine.  I drove it to the prom in ’72 (held on the Queen Mary in Long Beach).  And no, I didn’t ever get laid in the back, which sorta defeated the only benefit to having a station wagon I suppose.  It gave up the ghost for good shortly thereafter.

So, after the death of the Falcon, I began driving a 1963 Ford F-100 pickup similar to the one above.  Although mine didn’t look near as good.  It technically belonged to my father, but he was a Merchant Marine and out to sea for 9 months of the year, so I drove it like I owned it for the remainder of my high school days.  It was a good old truck although it didn’t carry much cache with the girls seeing as how most of my classmates had Mustangs, GTOs, Roadrunners and the like.

In July of 1973 my father and I reached an understanding whereby I would move out of the house.  The truck did not come with me, so I purchased a 1964 Chevy Impala to carry me to my job on the graveyard shift at the Stop N Go convenience store (a job I quit months later when $2.00 per hour lost its appeal after I was the victim in an armed robbery).  Now, this was a fine car if you overlooked a pint of tranny fluid once a week and a tailpipe held together by a tin can (which I thought was a brilliant solution for rust-through).  I used to drive it down to San Diego (100 miles south of OC) on the weekend to visit my high school sweetheart.  Coming back home there was an immigration check point at San Onofre and I swear every week I got flagged down by the Border Patrol agents for a vehicle search.  Now, I was a long haired hippy freak looking guy back then, and it sorta got on my nerves after awhile.  So I finally complained about being constantly harassed.  The agent just laughed and said, it’s not about you–it’s your car!  I guess the old Chevy fit the smuggler profile.  Ah well.

Well, things were beginning to look up employment-wise as I secured the number two position at Adco Plastics (which was a three man operation) making a hefty $3.50 per hour.  So, I purchased a used (but new for me!) 1973 Datsun pickup truck.  Mine was blue with some cool pin-striping.  I surely did enjoy this vehicle.  Took it on a lot of camping trips and road excursions.  Even put a camper shell on the back.  And yes, I did have some good times back there, thanks for asking.  Now one other thing I remember that happened in this truck (perhaps related to the previous thing)– I had recently acquired a cute little German Shepard puppy and I was picking up my girlfriend from her job at the mall.  And in the parking lot she said the words that no 19 year old male wants to hear: “I’m pregnant” (she was 17).  And my response was: “Damn it Bridget! If I knew you were gonna get pregnant, I wouldn’t have got the dog!”.  All’s well that ends well.  I kept the dog, kept the baby, and married Bridget.

So, with a wife and baby came new responsibilities and after a series of dead-end jobs it was time for some employment stability and security.  And so I took a job with my Uncle Sam as a part-time flexible letter carrier (mailman) at $5.25 an hour, plus benefits!  With my future now in safekeeping with the U.S. government, I could add another kid to the household and buy a car for the spouse.  Thus, Kevin joined his sister Renee in the back seat of our almost good as new 1975 AMC Pacer.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, I am not ashamed to admit that I was a proud owner of this fine example of American craftsmanship and styling.  Ok, the car was a piece of crap, but I thought then and still do, that it looked really cool.  It was a comfortable ride, but it had this mysterious bug where you’d be driving along and it would just shut down.  Not a fun thing at speed on the Interstate.  My best memory of the Pacer was it carried us to our new life Prescott, Arizona.  Well, it carried Bridget and the kids.  I sold my beloved Datsun to finance the move and drove a Ryder rental truck with all our earthly possessions and left California behind for good.

Ah, Prescott was like moving to paradise.  Living in Arizona’s mile high city was the greatest experience.  I walked to work, played softball, marveled at smog free blue skies and enjoyed the moderate four season climate.  Whatever ailed the Pacer was exacerbated by the mountain air and seeing as how we were living in the country now, we needed a more appropriate vehicle.  Like a 1974 Toyota LandCruiser 4X4 station wagon.  Yes siree that was a fine vehicle.  Not much for creature comforts, but we had a blast exploring the dirt backroads through the surrounding mountains and doing picnics wherever the vista inspired us to stop.  Bought our first house and settled in with our two kids to live the American dream.

Oh wait a minute.  The American dream is house, two kids, and TWO cars in the garage (although I actually had a carport).  Well, I had missed out on all the big block V8s back in high school, but I jumped on the chance to purchase my neighbor’s 1966 Pontiac Grand Prix.  Oh man, it was about as cherry as the one pictured above.  It drove like a boat, meaning it just floated down the open highway.  I thought it looked a little like the Batmobile,  but the kids called it “the big ride”.  As in when I was taking the kids along on an errand it was always “daddy, can we take the big ride?”  So cute.  And accurate.

Dreams don’t always end the way you want, but new dreams come along and take their place.  I suppose that’s pretty much the way life works for most of us.  Bridget and I divorced and in a fit of madness I traded in the big ride and bought my first brand new car, a 1981 Mazda GLC Sport.  Hell, I’m thinking you coulda built 3 Mazdas with the sheet medal from that Grand Prix.  But I have to say, that Mazda was really fun to drive.  5 speed stick shift, tight steering and suspension, and lots of twisting mountain roads (my favorite was the one up Mingus Mountain to the ghost town of Jerome.  In fact, I drove that car all over the Western United States.  And then I sold everything I owned that didn’t fit in the back seat and moved to join the kids in Oklahoma.

Well, technically I took a job in Fort Smith, Arkansas.  My parents owned a small farm/ranch across the border in Monroe, OK and the kids were staying there.  I had just worn out the Mazda with hard driving and so it was time to make a change.  That turned out to be the 1984 Pontiac Sunbird Turbo.  Mine was a dark blue.  You know, the car wasn’t half bad.  If you could overlook design flaws which caused the spark plug wires to melt after prolonged highway driving.  And then I drove it into a flooded stream crossing and it always smelled of mildew thereafter.   Hmm, suffice to say it was the last GM product that I ever purchased.  I had given up on being a mailman after that first icy Arkansas winter and took an inside job as the Safety Manager and in 1986 I got a big promotion doing labor relations work in Columbia, South Carolina.  Driving there was the last road trip for me and the Sunbird.  Good riddance!

Dumped the Sunbird and bought a 1987 Dodge Ram pickup truck.  About a year later I was driving to North Carolina for business and early in morning pulled into an I-95 rest area.  And lo and behold there was the old Sunbird.  I went into the restroom to take care of business and guessed that the other guy in there was the new (and probably unhappy) owner of the Pontiac.  Of course, restroom decorum did not allow me to say anything to him, but I did wonder what are the odds I’d cross paths with the old car like that?  Anyway, the Ram was a great truck.  The kids had gotten used to farm life so I hauled horses in a big old trailer behind that truck from OK to SC.  And somewhere in Tennessee I made the mistake of letting the horses out for a little leg stretch.  And they refused to re-trailer.  What a pain in the ass that was.  If I remember right, we had to call a vet out to tranquilize them.  But for the next few years that old Ram hauled a bunch of hay, that’s for sure.  Hey, wait a minute!  I’ve actually got a picture of that Ram somewhere.  Hold on…

Heh, is that Tom Selleck?  Anyway, it was a great truck that was still going strong when I took my next promotion to Arlington, VA ten years later in 1996.

So my other vehicle in South Carolina was this fine 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  This was the first year of the Grand Cherokee, and in fact, I ordered mine direct from the factory.  I really did like this vehicle and it was still going strong 150,000+ miles later when it had an unfortunate encounter with a tree after the move to Virginia (I was not involved in that fiasco).

So, I had racked up the miles on the trusty Ram and I had the commute from hell up I-95 from Stafford County everyday.  The wife had found work in Richmond about the same distance south (at least time wise), so I needed something more reliable.  Having been happy with Chrysler products, I opted for the Dodge Dakota Sport (stuck with the red color).  Hated to let the Ram go, but not as much as I did a few hours later when the transmission on the Dakota failed.  I couldn’t believe it.  Luckily we were at the movies not far from home.  The next day I was back at the dealership asking for my Ram back, but alas, it was gone (or so they claimed).  Anyway, with the transmission replaced, the Dakota turned out to be a good little truck.  I wish I had gone with the club cab, because it was just a tad small for my growing frame.

I don’t really know why, but I bought this 1997 VW Jetta.  It was sporty (and red) with a stick shift and all and I thought it had nice clean lines, but it really wasn’t very practical.  Shifting gears in the daily traffic jams on I-95 got old pretty quick.  Sold it to my daughter (the kids, now grown, had both stayed in South Carolina).

So, having driven the Jetta down to South Carolina to deliver to Renee, I needed some wheels to get back to Virginia.  And I went with the Classic Jeep Cherokee.  Liked the way it looks too, although it was not as roomy or smooth riding as the Grand Cherokee.  I took a temporary assignment as the Human Resources Director in Little Rock, Arkansas and this is what drove me there and back.  Well, I drove to the casinos in Mississippi a few times too, but that’s another story.  This turned out to be my last gig with the Postal Service (but not my last Jeep), having accepted a job for more pay and less responsibility with the Department of Education in Washington, DC starting in January 2001.

So you know, my next vehicle was a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee like this except a different color (yeah, that’s right, red).  I sold the other Jeep to Kevin down in SC, and I think he drove it until the wheels came off.  But this Grand Cherokee was by far the best car I have ever owned.  You know, when a vehicle is still looking good and running good after it is paid for, well, that’s really something in my book.  Definitely one fine automobile.  Hated to see Obama sell Chrysler to Fiat, but I imagine my Jeep buying days are over now.

Anyway, the Education job with better pay and less responsibility turned out to be pretty boring  and I started to get the itch to do something different.  Really different.  I applied for some jobs in Iraq, but they didn’t need any old fat guys there at the time.  I did get an offer from the Army in Korea.  So, in January 2005 I arrived here without a clue.  And without a car.  So, I purchased myself a “hoopdee”, which is basically a vehicle that is recycled between owners as people come and go.  I bought this Mitsubishi Expo from a guy who was leaving Korea for Japan.  I drove it for my first 3 years here.  And other than a transmission, alternator, and battery it was a fine ride.  Well, the A/C wasn’t much either come to think of it.  I sold it to a soldier working for AFN and still see it around base sometimes.  So, in the fine tradition of hoopdees, it lives on.

My current ride is a Nissan Bluebird, it looks just like the one above.  Yep, right hand drive direct from Japan.  This car has a sad history, as it belong to my now deceased former boss.  First time I rode in it was when he picked me on my first night in Korea.  It is a very nice car.  I tried to sell it for the widow without success. The right hand drive puts people off sometimes and the car is worth much more than people will pay for a hoopdee.  Since the car is not legal to be shipped back to the states, there is a limited market.  I wound up with it almost by default.  I paid her what it was worth to me, which was less than market value by a good deal.  Well, market value and market reality are different, but I still feel a little guilty about it.  When I leave this fall, I guess it will begin its journey into hoopdee-hood.  Great car though.

Alright.  I have no idea why I did this remembrance  to vehicles gone by.  And while I touched on certain aspects of my life’s history, it is by no means comprehensive.  I left out friends, lovers, wives, step-children, and all kinds of other important stuff.  No offense intended towards anyone, ok?  Hey, I have to save something for my autobiography, right?

One last thing: If you have read this far, please forgive me.  I can’t help being pathetic sometimes…

UPDATE January 2011: I thought I’d add my current ride, a Chevy HHR.  It’s actually working out pretty well so far.  I’ve taken a couple of road trips and it’s a comfortable ride, even for a big guy like me.  Mostly I just schlep groceries and run errands around town.  It gets about 30 mpg on the highway.  I bought it used as I won’t be partonizing Government Motors in the future.

Update 9/2/2015:  Another vehicle to add to the stable.  Going back in time (to the last century in fact) and I am now the not so proud owner of a 1999 Hyundai Sonata.  Hey, it gets me where I want to go and back.  So far at least.

How far will this take me in life?