Squealing Tires, 80s Pop Music, & a Very Happy Father's Day

When I was sixteen years old, I was lucky enough to have a driver's license. The Michigan state law had yet to be amended to include waiting periods and restricted driving times for teens, and I didn't even have to take a road test. Sure, I had my learner's permit for almost an entire year, but when I turned sixteen, I was free.

Well, I was as free as I could be while having to depend on my parents for a car. Most of the time, I got to drive my mom's Ford Windstar minivan, which, when he started driving, my brother affectionately nicknamed "The Pimp Van."

I think it was the tinted windows.

I remember turning the corner from McCann Street onto Pennsylvania Road, somehow squealing the van's tires, and sending me and Kelly into a fit of giggles. "You squealed the tires in THE VAN!" I remember carting people all over Downriver in that red Windstar, toilet-papering teacher's houses (no I didn't, Mom), stealing election signs and putting them all on one lawn (that was the other kids, Dad), piling out of it at the Dairy Queen, or packing it up for a picnic at Willow Metropark.

I know that I was lucky to have trusting parents.

But I also know when I was the luckiest: when I got to drive my dad's Camaro.

Oh, that car. It was cherry red, with black interior and t-tops. It had the best pick-up of any car I have ever driven. I had to move the bucket seat so close to the steering wheel in order to reach the pedals, that I looked like a little Lego person behind the wheel.

It was a 1992 model, the 25th anniversary edition, and it had a tape deck. In the summer of 1996, there was nothing more satisfying than cruising the streets of Southgate, blasting Nirvana, Counting Crows, or Gin Blossoms. Or... Bon Jovi.

I taped Bon Jovi's Crossroad from Kelly's CD, and that tape got more play than anything else in my collection. We belted out the words to "Livin' on a Prayer" at the top of our lungs.

I got the 'Scort in the autumn of 1997 and my mom bargained with the dealer to put in a tape deck. By that time, I had lost my Crossroad tape. Once I got to college and I eventually broke down and bought the CD for myself.

But I didn't lose it. It was still in my dad's car.

So for Father's Day this year, I got him Crossroad. He specifically requested it, as he's played my copy so much that it's no longer in the best condition. I wonder if he knows how awesome this is. I wonder if he recognizes the irony in that, for the first time, I introduced him to some of MY music, rather than the other way around. After growing up on the Beatles, Cream, Beethoven, and Mozart, I got him listening to 80s and 90s pop music.

I mean, it's not like he isn't hip. For my fourteenth or fifteenth birthday, my brother got me an 80s compilation CD, and we listened to it as we ate dinner. When "Karma Chameleon" came on, my dad casually asked, "Hmmm. Isn't this The Boy George and the Culture Club?"

I don't know why I found it so funny, but thinking about that moment still makes me laugh.

My dad still has the Camaro, but after almost fifteen years of Michigan winters and salty roads, it needs some work. If I had the dough, I would have it restored in a second. He loves that car.

But I'm poor. So he gets Bon Jovi instead.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I love you. I hope you don't lose your voice singing along to "Livin' on a Prayer."