A history lesson....

Sometimes in order to know where you are going, you have to know where you have been.

I am sure that someone famous spoke those words.  But I am going to call them my own.  Waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the late 80's I was going to high school in Connecticut.  I kept to myself mostly and had a few really good friends.  The two pictures on the page above were from my high school year book.  They were in love.  But you knew that if you read the first lines of each of their comments.  These two were inseparable.  Joined at the hip you may say.  Even beyond high school John and Lori remained together and I saw them often.  Pizza anyone??

John and I had a special bond, that made itself known in his yearbook comment: "Rick get the green machine fixed."  The "green machine" was my 1970 Dodge Challenger.  At the time we graduated it was not much more than a rusty 18 year old muscle car.  But it was green.  Sublime to be exact.  And it was cool.  V8, air condition, sunroof, and I spent every spare minute I could working on that car.  I loved (and still love) having dirt under my fingernails and the accomplishment of fixing something.  John would drive me home from school just to get a chance to see the car and chat.  At the time, John wasn't much of a grease monkey......yet......  We all went to a private school that required nice clothes and it wasn't often I saw John dressed in anything but a clean pressed shirt, but he never had dirt under his nails.  During the senior year John and I worked together at an auto parts store and I think it was then that his passion for things mechanical started to flourish.  Or maybe I was just a bad influence.  I saved enough money to get the Challenger road worthy and painted and within 2 years of graduating high school I relocated to Arizona with my family and that car.  I still have the pile of letters that John wrote me after I moved.  He would address the envelopes "Dude Man Dolan"  The letters always brightened my day, were handwritten, and would talk about his search for a cool old car. I would get phone calls and he would tell me about his adventures looking at a black 60's Chrysler Imperial, and other cars which my memory chooses not to remember.  There was a common thread through most of the adventures - MOPAR. 

Now if you glance back up at the photo above, there was another influence on John and his penchant for the Mopar.  His girlfriend.  With a last name like Dodge, you can't really side with Ford or Chevy.  Lori's father Richard was a mechanic and if my memory serves correctly he worked on VWs at the time.  But that's just a technicality.