“Dad, what are you doing?” Patrick, my oldest son, sat next to me as I parked the car in an unusual manner, but he wasn’t done. “This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.”
We lived in an older neighborhood in Overland Park, and the three blocks of our street had no curbs. Instead, we had ditches to divert the rainwater that kept our lawns green and growing. This time, rather than going straight into our driveway, I pulled in parallel to the road and straddled our ditch while keeping the rear wheels on my paved drive.
The path from boyhood to grown-up includes a period when we’re no longer children but not adults either. As youngsters, we’re convinced that our dads are the biggest, smartest and best men in the world. The manlings we become are mildly surprised that Dad can remember to breathe.
I remembered when I thought my father was stupid. Like the time we ran out of gas in his pickup truck, and he refused help. I didn’t know he’d installed an extra gas tank. Or when he piled coals on top of a Dutch oven during a camping trip. Ovens need heat from the top, too. By the time he helped me diagnose engine problems in my car, I’d come to respect his methods, no matter how odd they seemed.
Now, I had to teach Patrick. “Just for that, you get to come out with me and see how ignorant I was.”
After the engine had cooled, we crawled into the ditch under the car, carrying a wrench and pushing a drain pan before us. “We don’t have a set of ramps, so I improvised. The ditch gives us plenty of room and we’re safe while we work. Am I still stupid?”
He sighed. “No.”
William R. Bartlett lives in Kansas City with his family.