These Are Your Favorite Car Moments With Dad

There were many, but two come to mind (neither were in the garage, forgive me).

Once was upon the occasion of receiving a “D” grade in freshman (high school) English because of a gust of wind.

This wind gust blew my (& several other’s) final papers off of the teacher’s inbox on his desk & into the enclosed courtyard of the building on the last day of school. And this is where they sat until school opened again in the fall (epilogue: the grade was amended the following year once they realized this, but that’s not the point of the story).

When my dad found out about my grade, he cut a business trip short, flew home and picked me up by surprise from my job at a neighboring farm to take me for an absolute blast of a joyride in a blue NA generation Miata he’d rented.

We laughed & had a great time doing donuts, taking corners on dirt roads way too fast (it was, after all, the fastest car in the world – a rental), going over jumps, banging off the rev limiter etc… we had so much fun I momentarily let my guard down & forgot about my D grade.

Until the ride ended, back at my place of employment. He then said “did you have fun? did you like that?” to which I replied in the affirmative. He then added “great, thats the last fun you’re going to have all summer, you’re grounded until school starts again, bye.”

He promptly dropped me off to walk the 2 miles home, and he drove back to the airport to catch a flight back to wherever he was doing business things at the time.

The other time is after I passed my driver’s license test. He said he wanted to take me out & celebrate. So we went to a restaurant for lunch in the biggest, hilliest city around, with him driving his 5 spd manual XJ Cherokee.

Now, I knew theoretically how to operate a manual transmission after driving countless tractors, mowers & farm trucks so equipped. But I’d never been successful in traffic, in this particular Jeep, with my dad as the co-pilot – constantly nagging at and correcting me. I think he realized he may have been the problem, so after lunch he called a cab for himself, handed me the Jeep key and said “you have until dark to get yourself and the Jeep home successfully, good luck.”

The drive home went great. The cabbie “took a circuitous route*” and I actually beat him to the house. I didn’t stall it once, wasn’t a hazard to myself or others, and from that moment forward, driving a manual transmission has been second nature.

*he followed me the whole way, but far enough back to where my 16 year old self didn’t notice.