My Dad and Cars

So I really had a great night tonight. Now if you'd been around here I'm sure you would not have thought that. So to understand tonight you have to understand the back story of me, my dad, and cars.

See my dad, every since I've known him, could fix any car, any time, any day of the week. Most of the time with his eyes closed. Yeah he's that good, although he doesn't do nearly as much car fixin' as he used to mostly because I don't live with him anymore, but also because he's older now and doesn't need or have to.

So my dad, while I was growing up, was always fixing a car. If not one of ours, then for someone in the family. Truth be told he is great at fixing just about anything. He really was blessed with a talent to understand how things work and the abilities to fix them.

So anyway when I was old enough to have my own cars, there was always need for maintenance. It turns out cars need oil to keep running...learned that one the hard way. So my dad would fix my cars. This usually would mean that I  "got to help" . Now for me at 16, 17, 18 years old, there usually were things that I would rather have been doing then "help" my dad fix a car, and I'm sure there were plenty of times when I didn't help and just expected him to fix it.
Nonetheless there were cars to be fixed.
So anyone who has ever helped a man work on a car you know this mainly consists of....holding something. Not really doing much of anything, but holding something, or getting some tools. 

Now for me my job was usually to hold the light, and of course I didn't hold it in the right spot and dad would have to reach up and grab the light out of my hands to get a better look, all the while chastising me for my half-hearted efforts. Or he would tell me to get a certain tool to which I had no idea what he was talking about and inside was wishing we could be done already.Inside I mostly hated it. It was either cold, or hot, or hurt my back, or boring..... Yes my dad and me fixed many a cars. 

It wasn't until I got older that fixing these cars (yeah I've had a lot of car issues over the years) really started to mean something to me. I really started to enjoy it. Not the car breaking down thing, but the time and the knowledge I gained. See over the years even just holding the light I guess I learned a thing or two about cars, and once I got older he let me do more and more of the actual work, which I really enjoyed. Again, it taught me a lot.

So present day. Tonight, I have a car issue. I call my father to get some advice before I begin. I've already gone through some of the steps he's taught me over the years, but still looking for some answers. He tells me what he thinks and we hang up the phone. I retreat to my garage mumbling and confused about this one. Pretty soon out comes mini-me. The DW said he wanted to come out and help. It was such an awesome feeling. Here was my son wanting to be with his dad, to share some quality time and fix the car. He wanted to learn, he wanted to get dirty, he wanted chip in and help......
Naturally I told him that the first thing he would have to do is, hold the light.

Now I get that he's 4, and he can't hold the light very well right now, but you have to start somewhere.

No seriously, it was cool though that he really did want to help daddy. We went to the auto parts store and got a part, and he almost stayed outside with me for like 5 minutes after that, but he got to cold and went inside.

I started this post be telling you that I had a great night. Sure we had car trouble, and that was stressful for a while, but I also got to start building memories with my son. The same type of memories I have with my dad, and I really cherish those moments in my life now.  Oh and I think the car is fixed.

J-Tony