June 21

36 years ago I was working in Holland. Every day Keith and I commuted south  from Vorshoten near The Hague  through Roterdam to Moerjidk. It took one hour. He had an MGB with a right hand drive and I had an Alpha Romeo with left hand drive. Because of this It was funny that no matter who drove I was always sitting on the sunny side of the car.

We did this for several years and witnessed the changes of the seasons from very long summer days to short winter days. The sun set at 4 pm in Holland. We observed and commented on many equinoxes.

Our conversations covered every subject known to man from wines to cars,  philosophers to female attributes. He tried to explain cricket to me and I tried to explain American football.

For a time we actually took the train to a station near the plant. There was a bar at the station and we got to know the manager who lived  upstairs with his wife and sister. He had many  complaints but he let us keep a car in his garage so we cold drive to work and return it in the evening.

Years later he was working In Houston and we spent time together. He later went to Indonesia and eventually got married to a young girl and they had a baby.

He is back in England and I haven't seen him in a long time

Cigar

I went to the PO to mail my son a Father's Day present. There was a long line so I went to the automated postage machine. Instead of printing a stamp it chewed it up and spit out a handful of confetti.

I then got in line and was wedged between two huge redneck cowboys. The one in front was smoking a cigar. At one point the line moved a little and I was not prompt in filing the gap.

The guy behind me said "Are you in line? if not I am going to go around you" In a rude manner.

I said "yes I am in line I just didn't want to get too close to that cigar", which was true.

Unfortunately the guy with the cigar heard me and he stuck it in my face and said "You want some of this?"

I didn't know what to say being naturally shy in terms of fighting in public places.

I said "Is it a Cuban"?

He said "You are Goddamn right"!

The other one said "I wouldn't smoke no Mexican cigars anyhow."

The first one said "And those Japs had it coming to them (The tsunami)

My dad fought at Okinawa an two other islands and we ain't buying any Jap or German cars.

By this time our line go to the counter and he bought a 44 cent stamp.

The End

Father's Day Memory

Johnny Learns To Drive

Father’s Day 1998

There are many, many stories I could tell about Daddy. He died young enough for me to still call him that.  One cold and sunny day we were visiting my grandmother in the small country town near Bunkie where he grew up.  The afternoon was sort of slow and lazy so he said, “You need to learn how to drive, Let’s go!” I think we had something like a 38 Chevy Pick Up with a toothy grill that looked like a flesh-eating dinosaur.  We also had a squashed-faced, snorting gasping, asthmatic Boston terrier, Snotty, who for the life of me I had never figured out what his function in our family was.

We climbed into the truck with Snotty in the back.  I noticed the familiar faint aroma of Four Roses Bourbon, which always hovered around Daddy.  I thought it was some sort of cologne because I had smelled it all my life.  It blended nicely with the Three Flowers Brilliantene hair oil which he used faithfully in his coal black hair (which never turned gray; mine isn’t turning either).  We headed immediately to the levee where we started driving along the crest.

He said, “OK now get behind the wheel.” (I was 12).  This was a pick up truck with stick shift on the floor, (before automatic transmissions had even been conceived in Detroit).  He said “ I always believe when you teach someone something you should always start with the hardest possible situation then work on the easy ones later.  This develops your confidence and speeds things up.”

I was petrified. There were swamps on either side, the levee was quite steep and the crest was narrow. He said, ”Now just turn around. I want you to do the bank robber’s turn in case you ever need to escape from the police or something.”

I pressed on the clutch and he put it in reverse.  He said, “OK, now back up and turn the wheel, then go forwards turning the wheel in the opposite direction.”  This way you only have two changes in direction instead of three if you start by going forward first, which is a sissy or girly way to turn”

The car lurched and started down the levee backwards.  He reached over and slammed on the brake with his left foot.  He said, “OK, all you have to do is put it in first and manipulate the accelerator, brake and clutch with two feet and ease it back up onto the levee.”  Having never touched either of these petals before in my life, much less a stick shift I was having some difficulty.  After about 5 minutes of our 4 legs becoming hopelessly entangled he started yelling. "In! Out! Now! Stop! Start! What are you doing? Watch out! Suddenly the truck lurched again and took off, becoming almost airborne and landed on the opposite side of the levee with the front bumper in the water.  Snotty was hysterical, lying on his back with a huge erection, barking, gasping and wheezing like a mad dog.

He said, “OK that’s enough, you get the general idea.”  He put the parking brake on until he could get behind the wheel and manhandled the truck back onto the levee. Before we got to my grandmother’s we had a flat. We always had a flat when we went anywhere, but fortunately we kept a huge inventory of semi-inflated bald tires in the back of the truck.  Also fortuitously it was in front of a bar.  We went in and three hours later after many games of pool and stories with his cronies, (he seemed to have friends in every bar in the parish) we emerged and he said, “We better get home, Momma’s going to have a fit, but first I am going to show you how to fix a flat.”

The next day I want down to the drivers license department, which was Fatty Candella’s barbershop.  Fatty said, “Do you want a haircut or driver’s license”?  I said "driver’s license" and he said, “Can you drive?” I thought flying over a levee while crying, screaming, getting yelled at with the chorus of Snotty’s snorting probably qualified me and said "Yes, Daddy taught me yesterday on the levee in Plaucheville.”  He said, "I wish I could have seen that.”  Gentle laughter and eye rolling circulated throughout the room.   He said, "Go over to that drawer and get out an application.” He put the scissors down and signed a little card, which he handed me. He said, “Today you get a free haircut because you are a man now.”

I have been driving 50 years, have had a few fender benders and still remember all the lessons my Daddy taught me.