I remember the year between my freshman and sophomore year of college like it was yesterday. That summer, I worked 60 plus hours a week on a farm plus many more hours chasing girls. It was a summer that I will remember for the rest of my life.
Going into that summer, my goals were to make as much money as possible and flirt with as many girls as possible. The working part was easy since my parents owned a sod farm. The girl part was going to be harder.
I grew up in the thumb of Michigan so there wasn’t exactly the cream of the crop to pick from. However, I was bound and determined to do my best at finding whatever female company I could. When I say I was bound and determined, I was bound and determined. I dropped the freshman fifteen, grew my hair out and got an awesome tan. I was ready for any girl that came my way.
As the summer progressed, I had a lot of run-ins with some fine ladies but never seemed to close the deal. What was my problem?… was it my confidence, was it my stupid long curly hair, or was it the fact that I drove around a beater mini-van?
I am sure my problems had more to do with the first two things but my friends convinced me of the van argument. Once they convinced me that my van was the problem, I started looking for a new vehicle.
For some reason, I wanted to get a brand new truck. I couldn’t afford anything real fancy so I bought a brand new Ford Ranger Looking back, that was a pretty risky thing to do. A new vehicle for somebody that made 4,000 bucks a year and was in college? Over the next few years, I regretted my decision a couple times. Looking back… It was the right thing to do.
That little Ford Ranger was awesome. It never broke down once. I never changed the tires, barely changed the oil but that thing kept moving mile after mile. I took that truck everywhere.
The Ford Ranger was with me in Panama City for Spring Break, job interviews, on my wedding day. The Ford Ranger helped me move countless times, drove me to my first job out of college… it even drove me on my first date. That truck was part of me for seven years.
Unfortunately, after sharing all of the above experiences with my truck, the Ford Ranger wasn’t really a family car. When I found out my wife was pregnant, I knew the truck was going to be gone. I argued with my wife that the Ford Ranger could handle a baby. People put car seats in the fronts of trucks all the time. That argument didn’t really go that well.
A couple weeks later, the Ford Ranger was in the rear-view mirror as I pulled out of a dealer’s lot. I wish I knew who purchased that little truck. I put 150,000 miles and countless memories on that truck. I know the new owner is doing the same.