Graduations

This week, our granddaughter, Madeleine, Leif's niece, will graduate from high school. I was thinking today about all the graduations that have taken place in our family, beginning with my parents, and how much hope, pride, gratitude and expectation are part of all that surrounds the event.

When Leif graduated from Manhattan High School in 1993, he was already taking classes at Kansas State University. He was the "cool dude," the one with the RX-7 (used) sports car, the one with a cell phone (very unusual at that time, and he paid the bills himself), the one with the long leather coat and the long luxurious hair that the guys hated and the girls loved.

High school was not an easy time for Leif. He had many ups and downs, as so many teens do. He was shy, but had to adjust to three different high schools. He fell in love, deeply, but it was not reciprocated. He had parts in two musicals and found he could sing and make the girls scream, but he couldn't get and keep the one(s) he wanted. He had his first job and earned his first paychecks, but squandered the money. He managed to get through school with minimal effort but not know what to do with his life.

But that day in 1993 when he graduated from high school, he was happy and we were proud. I think he thought life was going to get better, and be easier, and he would shine. I wish that had happened for him.

Leif & the 2002 Black Dodge Stratus Coupe - February 2003 to December 2005

While Leif and Nikko were at Fort Drum, they also owned a used white sports car that Nikko drove, and later Leif did manage to find and purchase another used RX-7, which was what he had when he came back from the Army in May 2001. He drove it until it "died." That is, it wasn't drivable and would have required more expensive repairs than were feasible. Leif didn't have the money to either fix it or purchase a new, or even used, car. He was in his senior year at KSU and living on his GI Bill stipend and the small amount he earned as a school crossing guard. He sold the RX-7 to a father and son who were looking for a project car they could work on together. I think he got about $600 for it.

Leif needed a car and would soon need one to get to and from another job. He was looking into trying to get a loan and finance purchasing one. We had inherited some money from Peter W's mother and we decided that rather than have Leif go further into debt (he still owed us a lot of money and was still paying off debts he also incurred while in the army), we would loan him the money to buy a car, with some limitations on what we would be willing to pay for. Leif was very appreciative and went car shopping at all the dealers in Manhattan. When he had some ideas of things he might like, we went to see them with him.

The one we all liked best was a new 2002 black Dodge Stratus Coupe. It was a very stylish car and seemed to fit Leif well. That was when Peter W. went into his best bargaining mode. He was so good at it that he had Leif really fooled that he if he didn't get the price he proposed, he was going to either go elsewhere or get something used and cheaper. However, he managed to get exactly the deal he wanted and we left the lot with the car for $19,999 including taxes and registration. Leif looked great in that car.

While he was proud of having his first new car and liked the looks of it as well as the cushy interior, he said he missed the handling and rear wheel drive of the RX-7 and still vowed that someday he would have an RX-8.

When Leif moved to Florida in March 2005, he drove the Stratus to Florida in a caravan with us and parked it in our garage. He only had the Stratus for less than three years and hadn't really even begun to pay us back much on it when he had an accident on his way to a date in Tampa. He called me from the scene. I was in Kansas at the time and about to get on a plane in a day or two to head for Florida for Christmas. I think the accident was on December 23, 2005. Luckily, he wasn't badly injured, but he did have some whiplash injury from it and his neck continued to bother him the rest of his life.

As I remember, the accident happened because another car swerved into his lane just as he was coming to a traffic light. To avoid getting hit, he hit the accelerator and shot into the intersection, but instead managed to hit another car. Since he had gone through a red light, he got a citation for that and it raised his insurance. He struggled with high insurance rates all of his adult life due to the accidents he had.

I didn't see the damage to the car, but it was totaled. He hadn't even had it long enough to pay for it and it was gone.

The photos of the car were taken by him in 2005 in Florida. The one of him by the car I took of him in front of 210 N. 9th Street in Manhattan, Kansas the spring of 2003. Since we made the loan to him as one of his graduation presents, I've included a photo of him after the Commencement ceremony at KSU on May 18, 2003, with Peter W. and me. The top photo is a self portrait of him in March 2003.

Leif and the Mazda RX-7

When Leif was a senior in high school and trying to decide where to go to college, he wasn't enthused about all the application paperwork and also not very enthused about spending four more years in school, yet he wanted to go to college and knew he needed to get his degree. He didn't know what he wanted to major in, which made picking a school all the more difficult. In the end he decided to apply to only three schools, a university in Maryland he chose because it was near where his high school love from Puerto Rico (K.) was going to school, and the two Kansas flagship universities, Kansas State University and the University of Kansas. We had told both our sons we would provide an in-state university education for them, but if they wanted something more expensive, they would have to figure out how to finance the remainder through scholarships or loans.

Sometime during this process, Leif discovered a used Mazda RX-7 for sale for $5000. He wanted it badly. The car connoisseur had found his dream car . . . at least the one he thought might be within reach. He was fascinated the the rotary Wankel engine and the car was stylish, rear wheel drive, and fast. When he came to us wanting this car, his dad made him a deal that if he lived at home and went to KSU, he would get him the car, since there would be a very substantial savings in having him go to school in Manhattan and live with us over paying for a dorm room, meal plan, and transportation to and from Lawrence. He would need some kind of transportation anyway. Leif agreed readily. He wasn't committed to a particular school or going away to school, and he really wanted that car.

I wasn't enamored of this deal. Although would enjoy having Leif with us longer, I felt that it would be better for his development if he left home for college. Whether that really would have been true, we will never know. We can never go back to find out whether doing something different would have resulted in a better outcome.

I think he got this car before he finished his senior year of high school, and he drove it to school. What an awesome change from the old Maxima station wagon! Leif was tall, slim, and good looking. With his long hair, he looked like a guy who should have been on the cover of romance novels. In those days, he was also a fashionable dresser, and he was fond of wearing his long brown leather coat. He also got his first job at Idleman Telemarketing, and had his own spending money, which he quickly used to get himself a cell phone, long before they were common among adults, let along high school students. He must have seemed like a very cool dude.

Leif had this car for about four and a half years, I think. During that time, he finished high school, completed nearly three years of college, got married, and managed to have an accident with the car. I think the accident happened in the first year he had it. According to him, he was out on Fort Riley Boulevard near what was then the Holiday Inn . At the traffic light there, someone got in his way and he had to swerve, resulting in him smacking the car into the pole that held the traffic light. Luckily for him, he was not hurt and the car was repairable. The insurance paid for it and he had it painted a dark green instead of the dark blue it was when he got it. The paint job was an improvement because the original had some problems on the roof, as I recall.

Leif loved that car, but as he got deeper into debt and wanted to keep the motorcycle he bought (the Yamaha) and the old Ford 150 truck he had purchased, he finally sold the RX-7 to a man who was then his brother-in-law. I don't know whether he ever got the full purchase price from B., since he sold in on a personal contract, but he did get the majority of the money. He vowed that he would have another RX-7 someday, and when the RX-8s came out, he vowed that he would get one of those, and eventually, he did. Of all Leif's cars, I don't know whether this one or the RX-8 was his favorite.

Surprisingly, I haven't found any photos of the RX-7 among our photos or Leif's. I can't imagine that we didn't take any. I managed to come up with a kind of composite photo to give an idea of what it was like, but it's not good.
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The photo above show Leif as he looked in August 1993 just before he started college. It was taken on the Caribbean NCL cruise we took. The car photo is similar to his RX-7.