The Storm Trooper

The Storm Trooper, by Kristen A. Johnson

Most families have something that binds them together—for some, it’s an insane love of backpacking, or an annual trip to Disneyland or Hawaii (the Gasser family comes to mind), but for the Alley family, I would unhesitatingly say it’s cars. No matter if it had been a lean year, and therefore no family vacations were imminent, or whether the family was geographically separated, the uniting factor that brought us all back together again would be—cars.

This has been apparent since I was a young girl and could say casually to any one of my brothers, “Wow, that’s a cool car.” To which they could reply, “Well, yes, that’s a 1992, 160 horse-power, 2.6 liter V-6 Acura Legend.” Or maybe, “No, Kristen, that is a crappy 2000 Ford Mustang, and it’s an automatic.” These little chats helped shape my car knowledge and attitudes and henceforth, I could sneeringly look down not only on cruddy Mustangs, but also on Hyundais, silly Kias and laughable Amigos, or even American-made cars (being much less reliable than Japanese cars, according to my brothers). I even remarked knowingly to friends when playing “M.A.S.H.” in junior high that even though a Jaguar might look like a desirable luxury car, they really weren’t worth the upkeep and expensive repairs.

The fact that cars have been and always will be an underlying motto of our family is also evident in the stories we tell (Dad, for instance, is notorious for blowing up cars, running them out of gas, or driving them until his very life is in danger) and the overall family persona we project. I remember telling several nervous boyfriends that cars were a very safe and smart subject to discuss with my brothers, providing they knew something intelligible about cars, and even Rob Nelson, while lacking in other areas, scored high points with the brothers when he picked me up in a different car on five different occasions. (Unfortunately, this tantalizing detail about Rob ended in a very disappointing conversation when I could not describe the year, model, or even make of the several cars that resided in the Nelson’s airplane hangar in West Bountiful).

And to this day, Darron and I like to laugh about Marc’s good intention to extend the olive branch to the Johnson family. Upon meeting Darron’s dad for the first time, Marc discovered Kevin’s new Dodge Ram (with a hemi!) and immediately launched into a lengthy conversation that included explicit questions and happy exclamations. Kevin, meanwhile, remained quietly reserved and pleasant throughout the conversation only to say later in a bewildered voice to Darron, “Wow. That guy knew way more about that truck than I did. I didn’t think it was possible to talk about a truck for that long.”

And a response to, “Where are the boys?” will typically be answered by an eye-roll and “They’re talking about cars.” Ah. ‘Nuff said.

Perhaps the binding “car factor” is no more apparent than in the hereditary-like tradition of lovingly handing down cars that have endured the cheerful beating of several Alleys. The black Mazda 323 comes to mind – a car that was driven by Ben, Brandon and Megan before being passed to me. Though it was old and showing some noticeable wear, that car held a deep and soft spot in my heart after steadfastly trudging up Mill Street in high snow (passing several of my friends’ SUVs that were stuck or even turned over on the side of the road due to ridiculously jacked-up tires). It also became dubbed the “BM,” which stood for “burnt marshmallow” – a friendly gesture by some high school girlfriends whose cars already formed a s’more (Addi drove the “Graham,” Michelle drove the “Marshmellow” and Christine drove the “Chocolate”). I also have fond memories of playing “find-my-car” several times when the football team decided to move the relatively light Mazda across the parking lot.

But the car that really touched my heart—and undoubtedly all of yours too—would be the trusty Toyota Corolla.

I believe the Corolla came into our family through Dixie Wilcox as a “safe and reliable” replacement car for Mom, but seemed to pass quickly through the drivers in the family (I remember at least Dad and Megan) to me. I’m unsure how I even had the time to drive so many of the family cars throughout high school (the Mazda 323, the Acura Legend, and the Toyota Corolla), but somehow the Corolla made a long and lasting impression in my driving career.

Though I was of course grateful to even have a car, I was slightly embarrassed by driving this weird-looking car that was an obvious station wagon, but had been modernized by chopping off the back end for a very futuristic effect. I don’t remember who first said it, but the white plastic-looking body and dark-tinted windows made it a dead-ringer for the storm troopers in Star Wars, and the name stuck. This made driving the car much cooler, and only slightly inconvenient when I might yell out, “I’m taking the Trooper!” and Mom might yell back, “Oh, NO, you’re not!” thinking I was referring to the Isuzu Trooper. “C’mon, Mom, the Storm Trooper, of course!”

Even the major drawback of the car being an automatic—the first car I drove, in fact, that was not a manual—was more than made up for by the hours of fun derived from the “All-Trac.” This feature must’ve been a real breakthrough for Toyota, since they proudly proclaimed all over the body of the car and interior that this was not just a Toyota Corolla—oh no. This was an All-Trac Toyota Corolla. This meant, simply, that there was a little button (labeled, of course, “All-Trac”) on the dashboard that you could push and SHA-ZAM! You had four-wheel power! The only detectable change for the driver (or any of the passengers, for that matter) was a tiny green light that glowed confidently—reminding you, that yes, you were now using the power of All-Trac.

This seemed to be such an obvious psychological ploy to me and my friends that we began to make jokes about it—“Hey, do you want to go four-wheeling?” “Well, we do have All-Trac…” and even, “Hey, isn’t it supposed to snow, like, ten feet tomorrow?” “Oh, but we do have All-Trac…”

This became so common that we even began to dupe other friends into believing that All-Trac was truly something to be experienced. On one memorable occasion, my friend, Addi, and I drove a slightly slow, but otherwise very nice, boy home. He, like many other Toyota Corolla virgins, was highly curious about the All-Trac button and asked if we could try it. Addi raised an eyebrow and said in her most serious tone, “Are you sure?” “Yeah,” I added, “it can be a little dangerous.” “What do you mean?” our victim had asked. “Well,” I said, “do you see that concrete barrier over there? When we turn All-Trac on, we can drive over stuff like that. So, we normally wear helmets and knee-pads.” Luckily for our passenger, we just so happened to have a helmet and knee-pads in the car from some “extreme walking” stunts some friends had been pulling in an earlier school assembly.

He eyed the helmet dubiously. “Well, don’t you guys need one too, then?” “Oh no,” Addi quickly rejoined, “we do this all the time, so we’re used to it.” Addi and I bravely braced ourselves against the dashboard as I counted down to pushing the button. As you can guess, we didn’t drive over any concrete barriers that day, but we did get a boy to put on a helmet and to feel a little bit of fear and respect for the All-Trac.

The car went from being a laughing-stock to a curse when I begrudgingly drove up to Cody, Wyoming with Dad to pick up the Corolla after Megan had suffered a back-injury while cliff-jumping. Again, I should’ve been more grateful since the caveat was that if I helped drive the car home, I could just have the car—the other caveat being that I had to fix it first. This seemed like a pretty good deal, and I wasn’t actually cursing until I had been driving several miles with slick, black sludge dripping down from the steering column onto my flip-flop-shod foot.

But, fix the car I did, and the Storm Trooper became an indelible part of my life—and my dowry—when I married Darron and we came out to find the car decorated with marshmallow hearts and lips, and white shoe-polish writing declaring us, “Mr. and Mrs. Kristen Alley” (and one lovely phrase earned us a lot of attention, “Honk if you’re horny!” …thanks, Morgan) that is now captured forever in photographs of our wedding day.

That car took us through college, early marriage, and my daily drives from our Provo apartment to my teaching internship at Spanish Fork Middle School. That car also safely took me to the hospital on several occasions, screaming in pain with my first kidney stone. After one of these unwelcome jaunts to the emergency room, Darron brought me home, sedated with heavy pain medication, and lovingly tucked me into bed and otherwise nursed me. It was not until morning that I had the horrible realization that I had left my entire ring of keys, including the obviously large Toyota car-key, within plain sight in the middle console…of an unlocked car.

Living in the southside of town, where a perfect blend of rednecks with big trucks and people with no cars nor money resided, we walked with sinking hearts to the parking lot adjacent our apartment, expecting a stolen car and no thanks. To our shock, wonder, and surprise, the trusty Storm Trooper sat there vigilantly—the car had been ransacked—the coin trays were emptied, a half-used checkbook was gone, the glove box was a chaos of old ketchup packets, napkins and U2 mix tapes (why those weren’t taken, I can’t fathom), and the complete ring of keys had been taken—but the car was apparently not worth the trouble.

They obviously didn’t know about the All-Trac.

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Epilogue of the Storm Trooper:

The car continued to run for several more years, and was finally sold—in great condition—to Kari and Matt Key, which they drove around Oregon with our license plates for several more years after that.

The locks on our Provo apartment were immediately replaced after the theft.