That Day You Remembered

We spent his 18th birthday together.

I remembered the day he was born, driving to the hospital, looking out the window at the stark February trees. Wondering about this youngest child. The kind of man he would become. And mostly about what we would become together.

On his birthday, I picked him up at noon. He walked out of the high school office, past the front gates and into the bleaching white Florida sunlight, squinting and smiling. I stood waiting next to the car and smiled back.

"Happy birthday, buddy. You're driving."

"Hi dad, oh .. thanks." With a knowing grin, he stepped over to the driver's side and happily tossed in his backpack. We were headed to St. Pete Beach for the afternoon.

"Have you driven on the highway before?"

"No, not really. A little."

We swung around the on-ramp and pulled into the flow of I-75 traffic, among landscaping trailers and massive motor homes. Pick-ups and motorcycles. The old, restless and tattooed. He was on edge. I was too. Everyone is - on that scary stretch of Florida asphalt.

I told him, alternately, to slow down, change lanes, speed up, move over, watch out. He was doing his best to take instruction and not glare at me.

"This is the worst stretch," I reassured him, "We'll be out of the heavy stuff soon." And we were. Soon, there were fewer trailers with towering stacks of Buicks and Cadillacs teetering over us. His fear was ebbing and his confidence building.

"Hey, Matt, did you know grandpa had a sports car convertible and he taught me how to drive in it?"

He smiled and glanced at me, hands on the wheel. "Seriously?"

I leaned back in my seat, remembering my father. "Yeah, he had this little green Fiat Spider convertible. When we first went out in it, he was wearing his beret and his leather gloves, because it was really too cold to have the top down, but we did anyway. You know what he said? Grandpa pointed at me with those leather gloves and said, 'This car is a sports car, John. Drive it like one. Don't be afraid.'"

Matt grinned said, "Yeah that sounds like grandpa, I miss him."

"Me too. Every day."

I think that was the first time I heard my father tell me to take chances. To have courage. Have fun. It was his way of telling me I was a man. That in his sports car, he wanted me to be an equal. I was just sixteen. Cool.

Those words made a difference in how I felt about myself. And how I would come to feel about him, really. I began to hear my father's advice differently after that, I think. It would always be worth paying attention.

That afternoon, Matt and I spent time in our favorite places. In Big Jim's Bait and Tackle shop, picking out reels and rods, tackle and lures. Sitting on the beach. Casting lines in the surf. Looking over the harbor at lunch, sharing a bottle of Anchor Steam.

We opened my safe and sorted through old watches, especially the one my father gave me from my train-hopping great great uncle - a wind-up sterling silver Waltham pocket watch from the late 1800's. We looked at guns and coins and collectibles.

Late in the afternoon, I saw Matt stretched across the couch, sleeping. Slanted rays of the setting sun, pink and orange, slipped past the blinds and had washed over him. He looked peaceful and content. His eyes opened and I said, "Go back to sleep, it's your birthday." He nodded.

Later, we packed up and headed home, drinking coffee from a thermos. One the way home, we stopped at our favorite roadside farm stand, where they make perfect Cuban sandwiches and sell home-made key lime pies. We bought a Coke and a pie. Switched places and he drove home. This time, he was more confident.

At one point, I asked him, "Which of your birthdays do you remember the most? For me, when I was in third grade my mother had a party with my friends in the backyard. I remember getting this plastic submarine and a cool GI Joe foot locker."

He thought for a minute and shook his head. "I don't think any really come to mind. But I'll remember this one."

Me too.

On the way home, as he drank his Coke and we listened to Kenny Chesney singing "Key Lime Pie", he glanced at me and asked, "Dad, I'm, going 83, is that OK?"

"Of course. This is a sports car, Matt. Drive it like one."