How Saturn introduced me to happiness & changed my life.

I realize now that many on here may not know me (fotovue on Saturnfans) and my wife (Spazie on Saturnfans), or what we're about, so it is time for an introduction.

My wife and I are die hard Saturnistas, and consider everyone who owns and loves a Saturn a close friend. My wife and I met because of Saturn back in 2004, when I came to a Saturn Owners get-together she planned in Columbus, Ohio. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was born and raised in farming country just outside of Memphis, TN. I've been a fan of Saturn since the 1994 Homecoming, Saturns I've loved and wanted have included the '94 SL2 Pearl White Homecoming, the '01 Yellow SC2, the '01 Yellow Limited Edition Black Top SC2 (Oh, I would Die and go to heaven to own one!), the Berrywine ION-EFX (if they had come out with that I would have bought it!), and of course the VUE, which is what I ended up buying in 2003. For several years I was the "annoying customer" at my Saturn dealership, both before and after I finally got my VUE. I was infatuated with the place, and wanted to work there. I would come in almost daily, and talk to the salesmen about the latest and greatest Saturn models and features they hadn't even heard of yet. Many times I was showing them features on the vehicles on their lot that they weren't even aware of. I applied a few times for a job as a Sales person, but for one reason or another, I never got offered a job.

When the rumors first came out about a Performance edition VUE Red Line, I was all over it. I was giving my dealership info long before they even heard anything themselves. And in 2003, I was the first person to order a 2004 Red Line VUE nationwide, according to my dealership. I ordered a Black, AWD, fully loaded (minus Sunroof) Red Line VUE. In November of 2003 I had a friend at the Spring Hill assembly plant ask (and surprisingly receive) permission to take pictures of my car as she was built. According to Spring Hill and Saturn Corporate, my 2004 Red Line Vue was the 99th Red line VUE built, 49th production build, the first delivered to a dealership, and the first sold, so she was a very special Red Line. I named her Deja as some of the pictures from the factory show what looks like another Black Red Line VUE just before her.

So with my first Saturn, I went looking for a Saturn get-together to attend. I was already a member of Saturnfans.com, so I went looking there for events. The first one I could find was a "Saturn Owners Cookout" in Columbus, Ohio, put together by "Spazie" from Saturnfans. So I got time off from my job, told Spazie I was coming to her event, packed up my Vue, and went to Ohio. The first time I saw Kat (Spazie) in person, it was, I suppose you could say, love at first sight.

After a too-long long-distance relationship, Kat moved to Memphis where I was working as a police officer, and she got a job at Saturn of Germantown as a Sales Consultant. It became normal for us to plan Saturn Owner Events, and we planned them everywhere from Ohio, to Memphis, to Knoxville & the Tail of the Dragon (US 129), and we even planned our own 2004 Saturn Spring Hill Homecoming, of which there was a very very large turnout, including reporters from NPR's "marketplace" who did a story on us. In fact, it was the NPR reporter who first coined the term "Saturnista", to describe us, and it has been a name we've used with pride ever since.

Kat and I were married in the Smoky Mountains near Bryson City, NC on July 30th, 2006, a few minutes before 11:00am. We didn't intentionally pick that date and time, we just wanted to get marred the last weekend of July, as we had a cruise picked out for our honeymoon the first week of August. But as we began finalizing things, we realized what was so special about about July 30th, just before 11am, that we had to get married on that date and time. So we finalized our wedding date for July 30, 2006 at 10:30am, and were husband and wife just before 11am. We invited every Saturn Owner we knew, hoping to make this a Saturn Event in and of itself, and several friends and Saturn owners agreed to come. We intended on taking Deja and having her as our "Just Married" Saturn. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

On July 1st of 2006, I was coming home from work, still in uniform, when someone turned left immediately in front of me. I had zero chance of swerving or braking in time to avoid the crash, and hit the side of the Jeep liberty that turned in front of me at about 45 mph. My beloved Deja, was totaled that night, she died saving my life. She also managed to rip the back axle nearly completely off of the liberty, and totaled the jeep worse than the damage to her own self. So my wife and I, saddened by the loss of a vehicle very special to us, and special even to others (right Charlie?), decided we must have another Red Line VUE.

As our new Red Line would not make it to the dealership before our wedding, we took my wife's 1999 Homecoming Edition SL2. The honeymoon was wonderful, and we took pictures of Saturns everywhere we went. We even found some Saturns in the Bahamas and took our picture beside them every chance we could.

My wife and I ordered a 2007 Red Line VUE, FWD, fully loaded (including sunroof this time), in black, of course! I even called up a few old friends, and managed to convince a high ranking friend at the Spring Hill plant to allow us to go on a VIP walking tour, as our 2007 was being built. We were permitted access to the plant, and on 1/26/2007 at approximately 1330 hours Central Time, Kat took my picture as I started her for the first time, as she reached the end of the assembly line. We got to watch as our Red Line VUE was being assembled, from start to finish, and even took pictures, however we were sworn to secrecy, pictures included, to not speak about our personal tour, or show the pictures to anyone until after the plant was shut down on it's finally day as a Saturn Assembly Plant, for gutting and retooling.

We ended up naming our 2007 Red Line VUE "Spooky" after the song by Classic IV, and in many, many ways, the song is very fitting of her.

Anyway, fast forward some, and we are now living in Dayton, Ohio. I still dream of working for Saturn, maybe even one day owning my own Saturn Dealership (my ultimate dream goal in life!). I've applied about 6 or 7 times with various Saturn dealerships from Memphis, TN to Columbus, OH, but i've never been hired. Maybe one day my dream will come true. For awhile, I understood the problem with my desires for a job when we both lived in Memphis, as my fiancée worked at the Saturn dealership network I wanted to work at, so it made a conflict of interest, I was told.

My Wife and I once owned 5 saturns at the same time, but currently we own 3 Saturns, our 2007 Red Line VUE "Spooky", our 1999 Homecoming Edition SL2 "Jules", and our 1993 SC2 "Jenna". In my extended family we also have my parents silver VUE "Brandon", and my Sister in law's Blue ION sedan. Our other two we once owned are a 1997 SL2 "Brutus", and a 1994 SL1 "Tabel", we sold both to a friend of ours who fixes up Saturns in Spring Hill, TN. And of course, our beloved 2004 Red Line Vue "Deja".

There have been a few disappointments for us in our lives as die hard Saturnistas... You know, what everyone feels disappointed about: We've never been featured in the Saturn Signatures Magazine, although we've run out of fingers listing all of the friends we know who have. We didn't get invited to that super secret GM Heritage Center Tour and Dinner that Charlie and a few other Saturnfans got invited to, and we haven't got to meet Jill Lajdziak yet (she couldn't make it for the celebration dinner when Kat's dealership won the Summit award for the first time). We don't own all of our dream Saturns yet, and we don't have every Saturn Television Commercial ever made... yet.

Maybe one day all of our dreams will come true. Hopefully.
Anyway, that, I suppose you could say, is the story of my life, as it is so far.