Part 2: Tribute to My Dad

Here is part two of the tribute to my Dad. Enjoy - I hope it brings a few chuckles... though I hope they aren't at my expense (though Im sure they will be!)

(Photo by: Janet Osha-Miller Photography)

I remember fall always being a great season with my Dad. We have a lot of special memories together, in the fall. Halloween was one of the reasons this time of year was so special. I remember carving pumpkins with my Dad, from very early on in my life. To this day the way I carve pumpkins is the way it is because of how my Daddy taught me. You always make a square or triangle in your jack-o-lantern top so that it won’t fall in your pumpkin. Scroll saw blades stuck in a piece of wood are perfectly fine pumpkin cutting tools (and they don’t break as easily as the plastic tools companies sell for cutting pumpkins). I can’t wait till Emma is old enough to pass these traditions on to – and tell her “This is how your Grandpa taught me to do it”.

My Dad had his great big blue Ford pick-up truck, and we had many memories in that big blue truck, a lot of them being in the Fall, because of soccer practices/games and because of when I took driver’s education.

My Dad always used to let whichever one of us kids sitting in the middle of that big bench seat shift for him. Nathan and I would always end up fighting over whose turn it was because we thought it was the coolest to help Daddy “drive”. I remember the very first time my Dad let me actually drive his big blue truck. He had picked me up from soccer practice and we started down the road on the way home – the back way, as we often did on those beautiful fall days. My Dad pulled over to a turn around once we got away from the school a bit. I can remember so clearly saying “Daddy did you forget something in town, what are we doing?” and my Dad saying “Well don’t you want to drive? Learn how to drive stick before you get into the driver’s ed car?” Shocked and scared I moved across the bench seat as Daddy got out and went around to get in the passenger’s side door. He explained all the logistics as to how you let the clutch pedal out, how in his truck you never wanted it in first unless you were carrying a very heavy load. He explained to me how in cars you have to let the clutch out much slower than I would in his truck (something my driver’s ed teacher had to remind me of, as well as Brian when Brian was re-teaching me how to drive stick after years of having not driven it!) So after having gotten the feel for the clutch in the turn-a-round my Dad told me to go ahead and pull out onto the road and head on home.

That was the LONGEST drive home! Things we discovered:
1) I will try over and over to put the steering wheel in the “neutral” position, causing us to go towards the ditch. (Dad failed to inform me that “neutral” on the steering wheel really wasn’t!
2) Alayna + Stick = Jerky driving (something Brian and Jake can attest to!)
3) That was the slowest trip back from Randolph EVER!
4) YES there are times you have to use both the clutch peddle and the brake at the same time! My poor Dad almost put a hole through the floor; fortunately it was a dirt road intersection and no one was coming.
5) Me driving = Dad gets grey hair!
6) My Dad had an extreme amount of patients for me!
I can laugh about it all now and I’m sure he laughed about it too, because I’ve discovered sometimes you just have to laugh about it or you’ll go crazy and Emma isn’t even a year old yet!