{"id":1567,"date":"2018-04-03T12:26:15","date_gmt":"2018-04-03T16:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2018-04-03T12:30:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T16:30:04","slug":"mustangs-challengers-and-car-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/2018\/04\/mustangs-challengers-and-car-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"MUSTANGS, CHALLENGERS, AND CAR MEMORIES"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The car that my brother Jimmy and I learned to drive on was my Dad’s 1966 silver blue Ford Mustang with a 289 engine. We loved that car.<\/p>\n

However, we loved even more the 1972 Dodge Challenger which became the first car that Jimmy and I bought. Dad actually got the car, if I remember, but Jimmy and I togeth\"Imageer made the payments during our college days. I think the car sold for $3250. A man had bought it and taken it back to the dealer\u00a0after a month or so and then we got it. It was practically brand new. It was a tomato-red Challenger with a black vinyl roof and black interior (see picture). We had to put a Sears hang-on air conditioner in it. It was a true man’s car — a muscle car even though it only had a 318 engine which was the smallest they put in Challengers in those days.<\/span><\/p>\n

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A few years later, when Jimmy left to go to seminary, we could no longer\u00a0share the Challenger so I paid Jimmy $1000 for his half of the car at that point. He bought a huge Pontiac Bonneville. On the day he married Eileen, I put shaving cream all over that Bonneville with messages, sardines on the engine block, a sympathy card under the windshield wiper, and clanking stuff tied to the back of the car. I remember my Mom not being happy with that bit of shenanigans.<\/p>\n

I kept the Challenger for 22 years selling it just before I moved from Texas to Pennsylvania in 1994. I put two rebuilt engines in it along the way. It had well over 200,000 miles on it. I sold it to a Charismatic Prosperity Theology guy who drove up in front of my house in a $60,000 Jaguar. I asked him if he wanted to trade. He laughed as he said no. He let me sit in his Jaguar. It was like an F-16 cockpit to my mind. But as he drove off with my Challenger, I stood in the middle of the street and cried just a bit.<\/p>\n

Looking back, that Challenger was one more thing that Jimmy and I shared for a few years. It was part of the partnership that God had given to the two of us. I have many pictures of that Challenger. Now, when I look at them, I will always think a little more about Jimmy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The car that my brother Jimmy and I learned to drive on was my Dad’s 1966 silver blue Ford Mustang with a 289 engine. We loved that car. However, we loved even more the 1972 Dodge Challenger which became the first car that Jimmy and I bought. Dad actually got the car, if I remember, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/our-hope.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}