#asonneverforgets

Guess what?  I washed Dean’s car today… well I started to.  His windows are immaculate!

While I was cleaning them, I remembered you being amazed by my window cleaning technique.  But more than that, I remembered so many of the times you washed my car.  During shows or meetings, you’d wait in the car - and I’d come out to a clean car.  How you did it, with only an old t-shirt and a water bottle...I will never know.  I even caught you on your knees the week before you died, cleaning my rims with a toothbrush.  I really hope that wasn’t my toothbrush.  I’ll finish washing his car next weekend dad, I promise.  And I’ll share with him some of our adventures while I do it.  I’ll also give him the same lecture you gave me when I got my first car.  I still remember it so clearly.

“Make sure the inside is clean.  You don’t have to worry about the outside of the car as much.  But...if the inside of your car is a mess, then that’s the condition of your head.  That’s what people will think of you.  Never leave your car messy.  Outside, okay.  Inside, never.”

Funny the things we remember when so much we forget, right dad?  Oh wait, you forgot most everything.  You would forget what you were talking about in the middle of a sentence.  No worries dad.  Not making fun of you.  We know it was from your accident in ’75.  You couldn’t remember what you had for breakfast, but you never forgot our birthdays, or anniversaries, or what time to pick up the kids from school, or when to take out the garbage.  How could you forget.  You obsessed over every detail of our lives.  Maybe that’s the reason your memory was so clumsy.  It hadn’t failed you.  You just had every memory devoted to our needs, rather than your own.

“You know another lesson I taught Dean?  “Plan which lane you need for your exit.  Do it as far out as possible so you don’t have to make last minute lane changes”

I remember the day you taught me that too.  You told me Grandpa was the best example of planning his exit off a freeway (sometimes to your frustration).  But I told Dean what you told me and told him that you taught me that lesson, and asked him to remember to teach his kids the same (unless all cards are driverless by then).  You would be proud of Dean’s driving dad.  He drives just like Grandpa (mine Grandpa of course, not you - you drove like a maniac 😂).

Watch out for your grandkids on the road, okay dad?

I love you…