Road Trips With My Father

Last year I wrote a post for my father's birthday and this year I am doing the same thing of course. Partly because that man is hard to buy for and partly because I want to tell you all about a few of my favorite memories of my father. He turns 72 today, Happy Birthday, Daddy you are the best and I love you! When I was little I had to go every so often to the scoliosis clinic in Memphis for checkups to make sure my scoliosis wasn't getting worse (or better who really knows). We would get up before the sun came up at around 4:30 a.m. and get in the car and go to Memphis. Sometimes my mother and sister went, but most times it was me and daddy on a road trip. To this day, the sound of the tires on the interstate and the sound of a passing semi makes me smile and think of my daddy. We would get the appointment over with and then always, always stopped at Stuckey's for something to eat on the way home. There was one time that the car broke down and we got a ride from a truck driver to the truck stop where we hung out and waited for someone to come and get us. I met Carl Perkins that day. I remember those times as some of the best times because it was me and daddy, on the road listening to Johnny Cash or Don Williams on the 8-track player. I would look over at my daddy, so young at the time, and think he was the strongest, smartest, most handsome man in the world. I still look at him that way. My daddy knew how to fix anything and I still think he is the most handsome man I know. I think the most proud he has ever been of me, is when I gave him a grandchild. I have never seen him smile so big before or since. He scooped her up and took her up and down the hallways of the hospital, where he didn't know a single person, and showed her off to everyone he passed. That was the greatest feeling in the world right there, knowing I did something that made my daddy proud.