Rus Wednesday

One of my favorite pics of Rus (with Nichole and Marcy in the Background) at BlueRidge, AZ

I first met Rus when my roommate Kat invited him and his cousin Tom over for dinner after church in our Institute ward in Flagstaff. My first impression of him was "scruffy redneck," and while it was accurate, it was also incomplete. But before I get off on a tangent, what I really wanted to write about today was cars. Vehicles.
I'm going to tell the story this way:
One day my mom went garage sailing and found this "ganga" (great deal) in the form of a small white Cadillac pimped out with a red leather interior. She called it the Love Car.
Because of the color.
When I went off to college, being the youngest (and most favored) child, I was sent away with the Caddy. More than a year later this Caddy found itself with a busted heater-core-something and no one to fix it.
Enter Rus - F150 Redneck Man.Rus, a recent acquaintance and grease monkey at the local Jiffy Lube had been prepped for this moment by years of dying cars driven to their demise by his sister Katie. He knew how to deal with problem engines and had the tools and friends get things running. The vision of Rus and Clint alternately wedged into the front seat of my car (that's where you fix the heater core) in - um - creative positions will forever be burned into my memory. They worked their magic - my car ran - and I think Rus even got cookies or something out of the deal. Not to mention a warm fuzzy place in my memory.
Now, Rus's F150 was a beauty - it had an alternate fuel system where it could run on propane. It was really, really cool. And manly. Months after my Caddy experience I found myself on a date with Rus, (which was following several other dates), driving up a mountain in the snow in his truck. We made it to the top with only one incident (Clint and a winch fixed that one), and it was then that something curious happened. Rus asked if I wanted to drive. His truck. Down the mountain. In the snow.
I think that's when I knew this whole thing was getting serious. Men don't just hand over the keys, you know. So I drove it and I loved it.
So many of my memories of dating Rus and being a newlywed include that truck. He drove me up a mountain in that truck to propose to me with two dozen roses and a picnic dinner. He drove me to NM to meet his family for the first time in that truck. We went spotlighting in it. We probably even made out in it. (Probably?) He sold it so we could have some extra money soon after we had Bekah.
You know how cars that are part of Big Events (like marriage) always hold a special place in your heart (oh...you didn't?), well the Caddy and the F150 hold a special place in mine, even though they are long gone.
They remind me of new love...and that is a whole batch of good memories.