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Recently, I was recalling favorite teachers with a friend. I mentioned my 7th and 8th grade science teacher, later my varsity basketball coach, Mr. Rick Fox. He was tall, bold, and with a deep voice, commanded respect in the classroom and on the court. He drove a white Ford Explorer – if I had to guess the year, somewhere between 1991 and 1993.
When I realized he had one in 1995, I started seeing them everywhere.
My parents embraced the minivan era wholeheartedly. Our weekend trips to Sioux City, Iowa and Sioux Falls, South Dakota where rarely orchestrated outside the confines of a minivan. Still, I saw the Ford Explorer frequently and wondered why my father, despite talking about it, never bought one. By the time I reached high school, I had largely written off the Explorer in my endless obsession of the F-150 and Mustang. Convinced it was my imagination, I put to rest the notion of them being, literally, everywhere. Life was good: I was participating actively in the F-150 and Silverado battle with my classmates, and waving the banner for American muscle and the Mustang against foreign speedsters. My grades were not the hottest, but that’s a story for a different day.

The Explorer didn’t come back into my life until 1998, when I got my first job as a sophomore: a stock boy at the local Fareway grocery store. I would often bag groceries and assist customers in carrying them out to their car. It...