- My Dad’s father and mother ran a jewelry store in Mineola, Texas during WWII. Everyone in town said they seemed Jewish. They said that the Nazis would kill them if they won the war. To this day we aren’t sure if we’re actually Jewish or not because Grandpa and Grandma would never say, but we suspect we’re just Welsh with big noses and a mind for money.
- My Dad made more money in retirement “just for the heck of it” than he did in his entire career as an engineer working for the government. I have no idea what he did with it because he sure didn’t spend it on his house or his car. I think he gave most of it away to family.
- The entire time My Dad was investing his retirement money, which he eventually gave away, My Mom was bitching at him about it. She tried to get all of us to bitch at him, too, and make him stop. Maybe that’s why he gave the money away after he made it?
- My Dad drives a hearse he bought at a garage sale because “it was a great deal and can haul stuff.” He was supposed to be looking for a pickup truck.
- My Dad used to drive a blue Mazda RX3 station wagon that he got from me. It backfired every time you turned off the engine because of a design flaw. He thought it was hilarious. He liked to scare the hell out of people at the gas station with it. The backfire sounded exactly like a .38 caliber pistol firing 10 feet from your head. The canopy over the gas pumps made it sound even louder, creating an echo. Mazda created the world’s first 100,000 mile warranty because of the design flaw.
- When My Dad got the Mazda he had been used to driving Cadillacs. He said the windshield in the Mazda was too close and that it wasn’t safe. So he started wearing his old Harley motorcycle half-helmet when he drove the car. It made him look like a cop. People wouldn’t pass him in traffic on the highway even though he drove slow because of the helmet. He thought all the cars piled up behind him was annoying, but he still wore the helmet.
- My Dad wanted me to wear a helmet, too, because I had begun driving a 1973 Toyota Corolla, which I had bought from My Brother and fixed after he got it for free. I was in college at the time. It was hard enough to get a date at an engineering school while driving a beat up old Corolla and living at home without wearing a motorcycle helmet on top of everything else. We argued about that for a long time. I never wore my motorcycle helmet while driving the car, but I had a lot of fun telling my friends about it. They thought the whole thing was a riot.
- The Mazda My Dad drove actually came to him like this: I bought it from My Brother, who got it for free. I fixed it and drove it. My Mom came to me and wanted me to give it to My Oldest Sister because she was recently divorced and needed a better car than the one she had. My Mom gave me the same amount of money that I had paid My Brother for the car and gave it to My Oldest Sister for free. My Sister complained about the free car so My Dad gave her his beautiful 2-door Cadillac and took the Mazda for himself. My Sister and her kids tore up the Cadillac, which she didn’t seem to appreciate at all. Then she gave the Cadillac to My Brother to fix for her when it needed a tune-up. He tore the car up even more by drag racing it around town and then abandoned it in a major intersection when it defiantly quit on him. The Police notified My Sister that her car was impounded and she’d better come get it. She was mad at My Brother, not for tearing the car up, but because she had to pay money to get it back.
- My Brother later convinced My Dad to give him back the Mazda … for free. My Brother promptly blew it up by drag racing it on the Parkway and then abandoned it in the middle of a major intersection on the same street where he’d left My Sister’s Cadillac. This time he took the license plates off the car so The Police couldn’t find who owned it. Yeeeeee HAW!
- My Brother once sold me an old white Dodge Polara which he’d gotten for free. I drove it until I fixed my own car, a Monte Carlo, and then began driving the Monte Carlo again. Somehow My Brother convinced me to park the Polara over on the street in front of his house. Actually I think he convinced My Dad to make me do it since I was still at home while going to college. My Brother then apparently got stoned and painted curse words all over the car after his neighbor complained to the city for him having a non-running vehicle parked on his front lawn. The non-running vehicle was a friend’s 1974 Chevrolet Caprice that no one could figure out how to fix. When I told My Brother that he’d have to buy the car from me since he’d ruined the paint job with all the curse words he’d painted in black spray paint he seemed genuinely surprised. But even so he gave me the broken 1974 Chevrolet Caprice that belonged to someone else instead of paying me since he had no money. It took me 2 months to figure out what was wrong with that Caprice, but after that it was a great car.
- My Brother took my now custom-painted Dodge Polara and loaded it up with His Friends. They went out and played “Dukes of Hazzard” with it, driving at top speed down a motorcycle trail, jumping all the ramps and hitting trees and bushes. The car, just like the cars actually did in “the Dukes of Hazzard,” busted a front ball joint as a result of the idiot-jumping. So My Brother drove it home with the front wheel wobbling all the way. He parked it .. can you see this coming … on his front lawn (his wife’s dismantled Cutlass was parked in the backyard, on the back porch in fact.) Then he and his stoned friends took hammers and bats to the car and tried to smash it. It was tougher than they were. All they did was break a lot of glass. A friend of mine who was hotrodding an old Dodge Dart offered to pay My Brother $100 for the heads off the engine since the car was now ruined. My Brother refused to sell them to him because he didn’t want to do the work of taking the heads off. So My Friend offered to do all the work. My Brother still refused. My Friend, having seen what My Brother did to the perfectly good car, told me that My Brother was an idiot, as if I didn't know him already. My Brother later ended up junking the car and getting nothing for it except another ticket from the city for having a non-running vehicle on his front lawn.
OK, so it's 11 things. Consider the last one a bonus. I'm just generous like that.
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