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?