Good Old Rusty

Today was supposed to be the day that we sold the huge Ford Club wagon. Today is a day I have been waiting for over five years. Those of you that know me, know the hate relationship I have had with the van from the start.

It all started one day with a call from Don. "Hey, I bought a van," he excitedly said. "A van? I inquired. "We already have a van." I responded. We had just bought a van two months previous and it was running fine. We also had another car that Don drove that we were still paying on. Don continued, "They had this great van for sale at the church. I got a loan and bought it already. Can you meet me here and help me get it home?"


Now all marriages have a point when one spouse does something absolutely insane, right? Maybe he was having a midlife crisis at 30. What could I do? The deal had already been made.

I met Don at work to see this marriage wrecker great van Don had just bought for our family. There in front of me was an eight passenger green club wagon. It was huge. It screamed Mormon Bus! "How can something so big actually fit on the road? I thought to myself. "How am I ever going to park the beast this great gift from my husband without hitting other cars?"

We got the van home. It was apparent from the start that Don loved worshipped this vehicle. He insisted that we replace one of the other vehicles with the van.

I spent the next five years trying to find a way to get rid of this nightmare amazing vehicle. When Don's foster mom, Carol asked where she could buy a van like ours I quickly offered to sell her ours. Don was hesitant, but how could he deprive his foster mother of his one true love, the van or course. Carol took over payments and had the van a year before she decided that it was just too big and she wanted her car back. She secretly hated it too, but couldn't bear to tell Don. By the time we got the van back, it had been in an accident and the side door no longer opened from the outside. It was missing parts for the passenger door. There were a number of repairs that needed to be made. As soon as we came home Don was outside scrubbing it down and patching it up.

Now, I don't know about you, but we have always named our cars. There was the Brown Bear, the Yellow Bullet, the Green Machine to name a few. A name just never fit for the van. It took years before Porter came up with the perfect name. One weekend we had loaned the van to Carol. When we went to pick it up, Porter spotted it in the street parked in front of her house. "There's Good Old Rusty" he said. I looked and there was our then old, tattered, dented, warn out van. The name was perfect. From then on it became known as "Good Old Rusty".

A month ago the van started to show signs of its age. I had stopped at Rite-Aid to pickup a prescription and Good Old Rusty would not start. I had Dresden and Zander with me at the time. Don was at work and I had no way to get home. I walked home carrying Zander on my back and Dresden in her car seat. I knew it was dead. But Don went to his baby after work and carefully checked to make sure it was all the way in park and tried to start it. Good Old Rusty turned over and Don was able to make it home.

A week later I drove Rusty out to Eagle Mountain to my mission reunion. I didn't take the directions with me and I got a little lost. I had the kids with me and Don was at work (again). I stopped in the middle of a neighborhood and asked for directions. They pointed me in the right direction and even printed out a map on map quest. We hopped back in the van and were ready to head off. Rusty refused to start. I played with the shift column shifting it from park to neutral. It would not start. I said a little prayer with the kids, explaining that we were really in the middle of no where and that we really needed to get to the mission reunion. Rusty obeyed and started. Not only were we able to go to the mission reunion, be we also made it back home.

Don had me convinced that it was the steering column. It was fine once it was started. I didn't seem to have any problems as long as it was completely and totally in park.

It wasn't until I was trying to make it home from Wal-mart that I thought it could be something else. There I was in the parking lot and I could not start the van up at all. I called my sister and asked her to drive me home. She rescued me because she is the best sister in the world. She insisted on taking my keys and having Ken get the van home because Don would not be home until late.

About three hours later Ken called to ask questions about what the van was doing. I told him that as long as it was all the way in park, it would start up and Don would try to get it after work I was worried that Ken would spend a lot of time trying to rescue the van. We hung up and I wasn't sure if Ken was going to try to look at the van or if Don would just look at it on the way home.

A couple hours later Ken pulled up in Good Old Rusty. He was in his let's get serious mechanic's clothes and was clearly frustrated with the van. I asked him how he got Rusty started and he said he tried cleaning the battery cables, jump starting the van and everything else he could think of. Then he played with the shift column and finally somehow it started. He still had it running and wanted to know where to park it. I told him that he could park the van in the driveway. As he parked it in the drive way and it started to roll backwards. "Great," I thought. "Now it won't even stay in park." I was worried.

I was pretty sure it was the transmission after the final outing I went on. I figured I just had to get the van started and then keep it on till I was back in my driveway. As long as I did that, I would be fine. I had found a king size headboard and foot board for free on KSL.com. (Yes, I am one of those that check KSL.com for free stuff) It was 20 minutes away. I hauled all the kids in the van and drove out there. I left it running as we piled my new treasure in Good Old Rusty. We had successfully made it there and I knew we would be fine getting back.

As we rolled onto the freeway I realized that Rusty had seen his day. The engine was reeving and I wasn't going past 55 MPH. I couldn't go faster than that because Rusty just would not shift up. It was clear to me that the transmission was gone. I got home and parked Rusty knowing that was my last ride in that horrible wonderful vehicle.

So for five years I have been waiting for this day. Five years of stifled laughs from the neighbors as we drove by. Five years of explaining to people that I really didn't have a say in buying the van. Five years of parking at the end of the parking lot because that was the only place I could really find room to park.

Don announced that we would take it in to Carmax and see what the van was worth. We caravaned out there. Don drove his van one last time with all the kids piled up inside. I took the white car (still not named). They had to at least give us $500 we reasoned or $300 or maybe $200. We could still buy groceries or at least we thought we would be able to.

The gentleman at Carmax tried to put it to us lightly. "That's a pretty big van," he started. "It's domestic too? How many miles does it have?" He peppered us with questions, each time looking more and more grim. "I can have my guys look at it. It would take 45 minutes. I know that you wouldn't get more than auction price and my guess is that it would be pretty low."

By the time we finished talking to him, it was clear that we would be wasting our time trying to get anything for the van. I was depressed. To make matters worse, Don decided that the reason the van would not go over 55 MPH was that I accidentally had it in 2nd gear and not actually in drive. He lectured that I could have really done damage to the van!

So Don has won again. We are keeping the van. It is parked out in front of our house right now. To all my neighbors I say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you have had to put up for the beast for this long. I am sorry for the false hope I gave you that we were actually going to beautify the neighborhood by getting rid of the ugly thing. But most of all, I am sorry that you too are cursed blessed with the van.