Today I acted as chauffeur for a friend of my sisters who was turning 50. I drove a 15 passenger filled with very happy women to wineries in Healdsburg. Listening to them talk excitedly with each other, music blaring reminded me of driving our blue, full-size van in high school with all my friends piled in. Instead of gossip about fellow classmates or complaints about teachers, today I heard about sailboat vacations in Italy and second homes in Hawaii, children in college and crazy work schedules. it was fun to be able to help someone celebrate an important milestone with friends. In between wineries I did some free little library hunting. There were a couple of good ones and some cool metal art.
Also saw an awesome old Fordmatic in Jimtown that looked exactly like the truck my dad had, except Dad’s was gray. That truck never moved from our side drive, but we sure logged hundreds of hours playing in it. I wish Dad had held on to that truck and stayed healthy enough to finally fix it up.
Speaking of Dad, I also talked to my son, Kieran, who is fixing up a quad bike (ATV), and is very excited to get it running. Like my Dad, Kieran loves cars and, unlike my Dad, he gets to work on big diesel equipment everyday in his job as a diesel mechanic. Kieran calls me when he’s driving home from work or walking the dog and updates me about what’s going on in his life. When he tells me about what he’s doing at work I don’t understand half of what he says. He’s actually really good at explaining how different mechanical things work, I just have a hard time understanding it in my brain. But I can always here the enthusiasm in his voice when he has a new project. So much like his grandpa. One of my favorite memories of Kieran and my Dad is when Mom and Dad would come over to look after him when I helped out at the girls school. Dad would bring his Popular Mechanics magazine and Kieran would sit on his lap mesmerized as Dad went through the pages. He would point out things and Dad would explain. Kieran was only about 2 at the time, but he already knew what he liked.