Happy Birthday to my Dad!!!
…or as I call him, Pop! Or sometimes Papa (but those stinkin’ nieces of mine stole the name so now I have to call him dad again! haha)
One of my favorite memories of my dad is when I getting ready to take my driver’s license test.
I was almost 17 and still without a license, by my own doing. The rule in my family was, if you wanted to drive, you had to pay for your car insurance. And though I had been working for a while and quite able to pay for car insurance, I just didn’t want to give up my “fun money”. But my parents forced me to get my license so that I could take myself to early morning seminary and school, also take myself to work and be the extra family taxi driver. Well, the car I would be driving was a 1986 Chevy Caprice Station Wagon. It was yellow. It was large. It was a major tank of metal and roar. I named it Banana Boat Bob. The name fit perfectly.
Well as we all know, one of the things you have to do to pass the driving test is parallel park. I was going to take Banana Boat Bob on my driver’s test. My dad made me learn how to parallel park out in front of our house with that girth of a machine. And no, I did not get to use tiny orange cones or you know, something easy to live without if I accidentally ran it over, nope, my dad used other family cars!! I was FREAKING OUT! I begged him to use something else because I didn’t want to hit his classic vintage truck or my sister’s car! I was sweating bullets…no atomic bombs! I was nervous. But my dad being the quiet guy he tends to be at times, just stood there, legs shoulder length a part in the middle of the street, arms folded, telling me he trusted me and that I could do this.
Let’s just say that I slapped the doubt out of my driving instructor’s smug look when he watched me parallel park like no one’s business in that DMV parking lot. I did it with such ease and control, my instructor had to take a minute to kinda come back to the reality that I just did what I did in a tank of a car named Banana Boat Bob. Guess who had the smug look after that! Of course, all thanks to my dad.
Happy Birthday Dad. I am so excited that you are so much closer to retirement! I know you have been waiting for the day! You no longer have to count years just months and days. Thank you is two very small words for all the things you have done for myself and for the family.
I love you Pop!
Me and Dad at Disneyland, last year, during our family reunion. One of my favorite Dad faces. haha!
