![\"first-sight.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/first-sight.jpg\" "\\"first-sight.jpg\\"")
<\/p>\nGrace can take a myriad of forms, but for a 16-year-old male who suddenly beholds the set of wheels that he has longed for all his life, this is Grace, raw and uncensored:<\/p>\n
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When he was about 4-years-old, I recall taking Number Two Son to an outdoor store in Bowling Green, Kentucky where he spied the ride of his dreams: a colorful mountain bike that was several sizes too large. He just couldn’t conceive of why he couldn’t simply drive it off the lot, and he cried huge, Cadillac-sized tears. My heart broke a little bit watching that, but I hoped the day would come when that would be replaced with a scene like that above and those tears would be a distant memory.<\/p>\n
We made a deal with the boys a long time ago that goes something like this: make good grades, stay physically fit, work when you can, be involved at church and stay out of (serious) trouble, and we’ll make sure that you have a reliable set of used wheels in which you can begin to seek a little adventure and drive through college after which, of course, you should be able to more or less stand on your own two feet. Or four wheels, as the case may be.<\/p>\n
For Number One Son, the ride consisted of a 2000 VW Passat, for Number Two, a 2000 Each one had it owns idiosyncrasies and created its own interesting storyline. Especially the yellow Subaru. The one that dropped its transmission about 15 miles west of Cookeville, Tennessee where I was stranded for 3 days immediately after I graduated from college in May, 1984. I left Searcy, Arkansas with a little under $700 in my bank account. I arrived home with next to nothing.<\/p>\n I’m hoping that my sons will never be stranded like that, but if cars follow their usual pattern of behavior, they most likely will. And do you think I’ll be receiving a call when that happens? You betcha.<\/p>\n So, what wheels did you drive during your formative years? Any special road stories?\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Grace can take a myriad of forms, but for a 16-year-old male who suddenly beholds the set of wheels that he has longed for all his life, this is Grace, raw and uncensored: When he was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,20,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-huntsville","category-nostalgia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9561,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions\/9561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"wheels.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/07\/wheels.jpg\" "\\"wheels.jpg\\"")
Honda CRV. For me, it consisted of various cars that my Dad kept around, including a red 1967 VW Beetle with a stick, a–and as a die-hard Duke fan I hate to say it–sky blue<\/em> Ford Rambler<\/strike> Fairlane (3-speed on the column), a puke-green Ford Maverick, an orange 1971 Subaru sports coupe and a yellow 1976 Subaru sedan.<\/p>\n