What's Your Favorite Ride?

*It's Larry's birthday. This is a rewrite for him. But first a note.

Dear Larry,
Happy birthday to my old and honored friend and enemy.
We've been together since we were kids. 
Both of us bear the scars from many a remembered battle and some of those old wounds still caution us sometimes, should it come on to rain. 
Still, isn't it strange that there are billions of nice people on this planet, but if you were missing, just you alone, the whole world would be empty for me. 
I'd be lonely every day. No matter who else was there.

I couldn't be happy until I saw your face again. Until I sat beside you and held your hand.
Love,
Attila (Your Hun)

Thank you so much, Heavenly Father, for the gift of the Holy Temples and Eternal Marriage.
They make happiness possible.



Last Sunday one of the speakers at Sacrament meeting was our Stake President.
Among other things, he said a few words about how the purpose of life wasn’t intended to be centered around the accumulation of wealth.  
He said that it’s okay to work for the things money can buy, but chasing riches isn’t the same as providing well for yourself and your family. 
It seems that there’s a delicate balance involved here. It turns out that a life built on wealth alone won’t bring happiness.
I thought the President's choice of subject for his talk was kind of odd because I had recently been thinking about this very thing.

Wealth is indeed a funny thing.  Scriptures are full of teachings about it.
It means different things to different cultures around the world, and to different people in the same culture or society. For some it’s having a 10 cow wife, while for others it’s about having really big numbers on a lot of little pieces of paper. 
Whatever it is, it’s hard to think of anything that’s caused more mischief for human beings since the beginning of time. 
Think about the betrayals, hatred, murders, and wars that brothers and sisters have visited on each other just to get a bigger sparkly rock, shiny piece of metal, pile of bricks and boards, or patch of dirt than their neighbor. 
It all seems to be a big deal about “stuff,” even though it all really belongs to Heavenly Father anyway. “He who dies with the most toys wins,” seems to be the world’s motto. 
It may be more important to remember that “He who dies with the most toys, still dies.”

Anyway, Larry and I were talking about this when the subject of cars came up. A great car would be right up there with a 10 cow wife as far as wealth is concerned for him. 
He’s always loved cars. When we met it was because he was in a car club as a matter of fact. My Girl Scout group just happened to meet those car guys at Slide Rock near Sedona when I was 15. 

Well, he’s a geezer now and over his lifetime he’s had lots of different cars. A few were even new and nice. Among them have been sedans, pickups (some running), SUV’s, a couple of really great sports cars, and a 4 wheel drive Jeep named “Honey” that only went backwards when he finally sold it. Under protest, I might add.
It has occurred to me once or twice that he would have been able to afford a much better selection of vehicles if he hadn’t brought every single paycheck home since he was 20 years old. They all went to buy food, diapers, and shelter for his family.
But that’s another “wealth” issue we won’t discuss here.

Anyway, we started talking about his favorites, the ones most memorable, the finest “Ride” he’d ever owned. 
Out of all those vehicles, including two Mustangs (a 1965 convertible and a 1966 fastback), and one really hot, red 1987 Firebird, there was one he kept coming back to…..his first car. 

He was 16, had just gotten a license and paid 100 dollars for a 1946 Ford that was painted primer black, lowered, with an Oldsmobile grille. 
He’d worked the entire summer before his sixteenth birthday in the sweltering watermelon sheds in Glendale, loading melons into semi-trucks for 25 cents a ton. He earned enough to pay for that car, a year’s insurance and gas money. Gas was about 23 cents a gallon at the time. 
The front bench seat of that car was just springs with no upholstery. So he threw an old Indian blanket over it so people could sit without getting pinched. 
Something was wrong with the starter or battery, he can’t remember which.  In order to get it going he and his buddies would have to jump out and run alongside it, pushing until they built up enough speed for him to hop back in, pop the clutch and get her going. 
Tires were a real problem too. He didn’t have enough money to buy 4 at a time so at one point he had 4 different sizes on that car. He kept a kind of “tire shop” in the trunk, including a hand pump, tire tools, rims and lug wrenches. That way when the guys spotted a junk tire on the side of the road they could pick it up for later use. He says they could mount an old find in about 10 minutes.
( This tire thing puzzles me because I know Larry’s dad would never stand for us to let his grandkids drive around on bald tires…..no matter what it cost. I’m going to talk with him about this someday when I get to the other side of the veil.)
Once the husband of a friend of Larry’s mom saw this amazing vehicle, and when he was buying new tires for himself gave Larry his old ones.  Imagine 4 matching tires!!!  That was a big day I can assure you. 

Well, that heap went to the high school every day, the Dairy Crème after school, football practice and games, Lily’s Taco Shop on Saturday nights after dates, Thunderbird Park on weekends, everywhere the guys went until Larry was able to trade up a couple of years later. 
He'd found a 1950 Ford convertible, green with a white top. 125 dollars for that one. It had a black rag top and Larry wanted white, so he painted it with white shoe polish on advice from a friend. "There could be a problem with the color running," his friend said, "but it doesn’t rain much here anyway."

Out of all the cars he’s owned this first one seems to hold a special place in his heart. That second car comes close. 
I don’t have any idea where they would land on the wealth scale. 
I know they cost far less than any of the other vehicles he’s owned…even the junkers. 
All this made me think of a recent statistic I read about somewhere. 
Apparently, it seems that after a certain level of income, people report no increase in personal happiness with the addition of more money. 
Interesting.

So what makes a “fine ride” anyway? 
What makes people wealthy?  Is it just the “stuff?”
What was your finest ride?

Money….. wealth….. time spent gathering stones so to speak. It's something to consider.
Where do you stand?  Are you happy about it? 
Does Father think your attitude will bring you true joy?

Big questions with important answers. 

Think about it.