My wife makes these little kids blankets. They are cute, and every once in a while she sells a few. My wife's best friend also makes blankets, and she thought that they could pool their resources and sell some blankets out at a county main street town fair. So the girls worked on the blankets and today was the day. They went to the fair and sold some blankets, well my wife did not sell any, but her friend did. So today was Daddy day, and I took the girls for the day. We started by watching some of their t.v. shows and I made breakfast. Later we went to the gym because they wanted to climb the rock wall. I could not have been anymore proud of them. They both climbed to the top of the wall and rang the bell.
Later we got some lunch and we went to the main street fair. We went so that we could bring my wife some lunch and so that the girls could see their mom. It was your normal small town gathering. Flags, food, games, booths, vendors selling crap that will break as soon as you get home, lots of families enjoying the day, and yes, oh yes, a car show.
The street were lined with classic cars and their proud owners. I grew up in the automotive business and part of what we did was participate in car shows. I loved the car shows. Old cars, new cars, rebuilt cars, race cars, cars, cars, cars. I don't know what it was about the shows or seeing the cars, but to me there was a kind of art show feel to all of it, never mind the fact that these were muscle cars, and it is every boys dream at some point and time to own a muscle car.
Here was my chance. I could share my love of cars with my girls.
"Girls do you want to go look at the cars with daddy?"
"No daddy we want to go buy some piece of crap toy from that booth over there and then go."
"How about we just go see a few on the way out."
"No daddy it is hot and we just want to leave."
"Well we will just walk by a few on the way out."
Silence.
So as we were walking by I tried my best to tell them something interesting about each car so that maybe they would also find something interesting about them and we could stay and maybe they might share my interest for just a few minutes.
"This is a 32 deuce coupe. That is a Challenger. This one is a 55 chevy. Over there is a Ford Fairlane"
Then I pulled out the big guns.
"Look ladies, this one is called a Nova. Do you know what Nova means in Spanish?"
I was hoping that this one could do the trick. I would take their love of learning and combine it with their like of learning new Spanish words and combine them.
"No daddy we do not know what it means."
"Well Nova means no go and they could not sell the cars in Mexico because no one wanted a car called a no go."
Turns out the story was a no go and all I heard from the girls was,
"Daddy its hot can't we go?"
As we turned the corner to go to our car, and leave the sea of classics, my little one turned to me excitedly and said,
"LOOK DADDY!!! A GOLF CART!!"
In a sea of classic American muscle and steel, my girls were more impressed by a golf cart.
So as I lamented about my muscle car loss I thought about the rock wall, the basketball games, the swimming and diving lessons, and all of the other exceptional things that my girls do to make me proud.
So as I sit here and write to you tonight I realized something important. Someday I will own a classic car, and now I know I won't have to share it with them.
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