Please welcome my friend Andrew to Bikecopblog. He is a friend, a gifted and talented man and until this week the proud owner of a Toyota SUV. He wrote this as a comment to my post about the Malibu I sold a few years ago. It is way too good to keep there. Whether writing in defense of freedom, or about the departure of a trusted companion, Andrew's thoughts are always worth entertaining.
https://www.facebook.com/dittoheadadt/videos/10216977426965388/ My beloved 2000 4RUNNER joined a new family on Thursday. Suffice to say, the 20-yr-old buyer is a wonderful young man who considered himself blessed to have found my pal. When he realized it's a standard, he was ecstatic. That made it easier - not easy - to bid my truck adieu.
Later that day I needed to drive my wife's 2014 car on an errand. Apparently there's a rule somewhere that techy keys need to get bigger every year. My 2000 key was simple, black, flat; never needed a battery replaced; never needed to be replaced by a $500 duplicate.
So whenever I drove my wife's big-key car, I would pull out my keychain that would make a custodian envious, find my familiar 4RUNNER key, and then my fingers would just automatically find the *other* key, by default.
That afternoon, I stood in the garage for around 10 seconds fumbling with my keychain, trying to find my wife's key. It was right there, in plain view all the time, but my mind's eye didn't see it, because my fingers were still trying to find the 4RUNNER key that had departed with the its new owner.
I chuckled to myself when I realized what I was doing, it being the first time I realized that that's always been how I would find the *other* key on my keychain. And my heart ached a little bit with that realization, that my 4RUNNER had become, a long time ago and in no small way, a part of me.
My kids were 11 and 9 when I got it. They're 29 and 27 now. It was a part of me, it was a part of them. It was a part of us. Hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball, skiing, skating, camping, and more...perhaps most importantly, driving them to school every morning until they could drive themselves. She served us well. Here's hoping she continues her good work.
My beloved 2000 4RUNNER joined a new family on Thursday. Suffice to say, the 20-yr-old buyer is a wonderful young man who considered himself blessed to have found my pal. When he realized it's a standard, he was ecstatic. That made it easier - not easy - to bid my truck adieu.
Later that day I needed to drive my wife's 2014 car on an errand. Apparently there's a rule somewhere that techy keys need to get bigger every year. My 2000 key was simple, black, flat; never needed a battery replaced; never needed to be replaced by a $500 duplicate.
So whenever I drove my wife's big-key car, I would pull out my keychain that would make a custodian envious, find my familiar 4RUNNER key, and then my fingers would just automatically find the *other* key, by default.
That afternoon, I stood in the garage for around 10 seconds fumbling with my keychain, trying to find my wife's key. It was right there, in plain view all the time, but my mind's eye didn't see it, because my fingers were still trying to find the 4RUNNER key that had departed with the its new owner.
I chuckled to myself when I realized what I was doing, it being the first time I realized that that's always been how I would find the *other* key on my keychain. And my heart ached a little bit with that realization, that my 4RUNNER had become, a long time ago and in no small way, a part of me.
My kids were 11 and 9 when I got it. They're 29 and 27 now. It was a part of me, it was a part of them. It was a part of us. Hockey, soccer, baseball, basketball, skiing, skating, camping, and more...perhaps most importantly, driving them to school every morning until they could drive themselves. She served us well. Here's hoping she continues her good work.