Sometimes you told me stories about your youth so incongruous with my idea of who you were that I had to continually stop you to say "Wait. What?"
You waited until I was an adult to tell me most of the "Wait. What?" punctuated stories, probably because Mom made you promise never to tell us about your shenanigans when we were impressionable young kids, lest we think we could get away with anything similar.
Apparently you went to something like four different colleges, at least one of which you were actually kicked out of (seriously, what??). One of these was UCLA (you lived in LA??) and apparently you and your hooligan friend drove cross country to get there. Or maybe it was just over one summer when you guys drove out to California, at a time when you were just bumming around (seriously, none of this seems true). Until this point, what I knew about your education was that you'd finished college with GI Bills on Long Island after the army, and then worked your way through law school doing plumbing work. The words "boot straps" were never mentioned, but, you know, they wouldn't have been entirely out of place. It was hard to imagine this free-wheeling young college kid with apparently all the time in the world to bum around and get kicked out of reputable establishments. You were super vague with the details about those college years, and we only discussed it one time. I have so many questions I want to ask, so many things I wish I knew.
Apparently, there really was a time in your life when you weren't the safety freak we always knew you to be. Megan told me the origin story of your safety freak tendencies one time -- I never heard this from you directly, and I may have some of the details wrong, but I think it went something like this:
You didn't have car insurance (honestly, Dad, who on earth was this person?) and you got in a car accident. You couldn't afford to have your car fixed and also pay your college tuition, so you had to drop out of school for a while and work for money to get the car fixed. This was right around the time the draft was really kicking up for the Vietnam War, and since you were no longer enrolled in college, you were almost definitely going to be drafted.
You wound up enlisting in the army so you'd get placement (and actually lucked out of Vietnam and onto a military base in Munich instead), but still the lesson here was clear:
If you are not extra safe and if you do not have proper insurance, you will be sent to war (or Germany).
Pretty simple. Your obsession with adequate insurance coverage was sort of a subset of your overall safety freak persona. Recently, going through old emails looking for something, I came across one you sent a few years ago to all three of your children. It said:
"A reminder that you should all have glass coverage, its cheap. Dad"
That's it, just a random friendly reminder to ensure our car insurance was up to speed.
Anyway, my absolute favorite of the "Wait. What?" stories is from when you were in High School in Glen Cove. Apparently, something happened to the transmission of your car or something and for whatever reason, the car would only drive in reverse. Again, you couldn't afford to have this fixed, so what did you do? Well, you drove around town backwards, obviously. Wait. What??
I could not believe it when you told me this story. What do you mean you drove around backwards? You meant exactly that - you drove around as you normally would -- to work, the grocery store, school, wherever -- with the one exception being that the car was always in reverse. I asked how you could have possibly gotten away with this without being arrested and you laughed and said it was a different time back then (as if everyone knows it was totally permitted to drive around town backwards in the mid-60's). You said the cops got to know you as the guy who drove in reverse, and that was that. They didn't bother you about it.
Mom and you grew up in the same town, but she went to private school and you went to public. Still, Mom knew who you were and the first time she met you was when you were sent to pick up your little sister from a basketball game, and Mom got a ride home with you too. You were the hot older brother (and had a girlfriend with you and totally ignored Mom). She had a crush on you from that point on. I can't help but wonder, if you'd been in your backwards driving phase at the time this happened, would Mom still have fallen for you? Lots of girls might think backwards driving was cool and dangerous, but I can't imagine Mom being one of those girls.
I loved my safety freak father, and am so happy you taught us all to be extra cautious and overly insured, but I wish I had gotten to know this free-wheeling backwards-driving guy as well. He seems like he would have been fun. Megan lives in the town next to Glen Cove now, and when I go out to see her I always picture you driving around those streets in reverse. It cracks me up every time. Miss you, Dad.
love a
You waited until I was an adult to tell me most of the "Wait. What?" punctuated stories, probably because Mom made you promise never to tell us about your shenanigans when we were impressionable young kids, lest we think we could get away with anything similar.
Apparently you went to something like four different colleges, at least one of which you were actually kicked out of (seriously, what??). One of these was UCLA (you lived in LA??) and apparently you and your hooligan friend drove cross country to get there. Or maybe it was just over one summer when you guys drove out to California, at a time when you were just bumming around (seriously, none of this seems true). Until this point, what I knew about your education was that you'd finished college with GI Bills on Long Island after the army, and then worked your way through law school doing plumbing work. The words "boot straps" were never mentioned, but, you know, they wouldn't have been entirely out of place. It was hard to imagine this free-wheeling young college kid with apparently all the time in the world to bum around and get kicked out of reputable establishments. You were super vague with the details about those college years, and we only discussed it one time. I have so many questions I want to ask, so many things I wish I knew.
Apparently, there really was a time in your life when you weren't the safety freak we always knew you to be. Megan told me the origin story of your safety freak tendencies one time -- I never heard this from you directly, and I may have some of the details wrong, but I think it went something like this:
You didn't have car insurance (honestly, Dad, who on earth was this person?) and you got in a car accident. You couldn't afford to have your car fixed and also pay your college tuition, so you had to drop out of school for a while and work for money to get the car fixed. This was right around the time the draft was really kicking up for the Vietnam War, and since you were no longer enrolled in college, you were almost definitely going to be drafted.
You wound up enlisting in the army so you'd get placement (and actually lucked out of Vietnam and onto a military base in Munich instead), but still the lesson here was clear:
If you are not extra safe and if you do not have proper insurance, you will be sent to war (or Germany).
Pretty simple. Your obsession with adequate insurance coverage was sort of a subset of your overall safety freak persona. Recently, going through old emails looking for something, I came across one you sent a few years ago to all three of your children. It said:
"A reminder that you should all have glass coverage, its cheap. Dad"
That's it, just a random friendly reminder to ensure our car insurance was up to speed.
Anyway, my absolute favorite of the "Wait. What?" stories is from when you were in High School in Glen Cove. Apparently, something happened to the transmission of your car or something and for whatever reason, the car would only drive in reverse. Again, you couldn't afford to have this fixed, so what did you do? Well, you drove around town backwards, obviously. Wait. What??
I could not believe it when you told me this story. What do you mean you drove around backwards? You meant exactly that - you drove around as you normally would -- to work, the grocery store, school, wherever -- with the one exception being that the car was always in reverse. I asked how you could have possibly gotten away with this without being arrested and you laughed and said it was a different time back then (as if everyone knows it was totally permitted to drive around town backwards in the mid-60's). You said the cops got to know you as the guy who drove in reverse, and that was that. They didn't bother you about it.
Mom and you grew up in the same town, but she went to private school and you went to public. Still, Mom knew who you were and the first time she met you was when you were sent to pick up your little sister from a basketball game, and Mom got a ride home with you too. You were the hot older brother (and had a girlfriend with you and totally ignored Mom). She had a crush on you from that point on. I can't help but wonder, if you'd been in your backwards driving phase at the time this happened, would Mom still have fallen for you? Lots of girls might think backwards driving was cool and dangerous, but I can't imagine Mom being one of those girls.
I loved my safety freak father, and am so happy you taught us all to be extra cautious and overly insured, but I wish I had gotten to know this free-wheeling backwards-driving guy as well. He seems like he would have been fun. Megan lives in the town next to Glen Cove now, and when I go out to see her I always picture you driving around those streets in reverse. It cracks me up every time. Miss you, Dad.
love a
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