Here's to you, dad.

My dad has always been the kind of person I wanted to emulate. He's kind, honest, compassionate, and always thinking of others before himself. Growing up, he always instilled in me the importance of fairness and accepting people for who they are.

I have many fond memories of me and my dad driving around in his car on some barren country road, listening to oldies and classic rock. The summer I turned 16 he taught me how to drive a stick shift, surrounded by fields of soybeans and cows. Those were good times. The overhead "oh shit" handle got a lot of use that summer. (I also suspect that this is when I developed a lead foot.)

During my teenage years, there were moments when I thought I was being particularly crafty pulling the wool over my dad's eyes. One such incident was when he told me that I was not allowed to drive my car to the mall as punishment for a recent speeding ticket (this turned out to be one of many). Later that day he went to work, leaving me and my brother to our own devices. I grabbed my keys, hopped in the "brown beast" as we called it, went to start the car and......

Nothing. Complete and utter silence.

Puzzled, I popped the hood. Upon inspection, my brother and I found that dear old dad had taken preemptive action. Earlier that afternoon, he had removed the battery.

Outfoxed!

Dad-1 Kids-0

He came home from work that night with a slight smile on his face.

You see, my dad loved to play jokes. Every christmas eve, we were allowed to open one present which he picked for us. These were always large and ornately wrapped. After the paper and bows had been stripped away, a box was usually revealed with a picture of a microwave, or vcr. We would look at it in dissapointment and confusion and he'd say "Oh that's just the box I put it in. Keep going! It's really awesome!" or something to that effect. Turns out our presents had been packed similar to those russian nesting dolls that sit inside each other. Many boxes and wrapping paper later, we found ourselves holding our "present" which usually consisted of any one of the following: a stick of gum, a pencil, or a five dollar bill.

He always got such a kick out of that.

And then we got to open our real presents of course.

What I loved about the whole christmas thing was that he still labeled our presents as being "from santa" even though our mom had told us from the get go that there was no such thing as santa claus, and that they bought all the presents.

He tried to keep the imagination alive, you know? One of my art teachers once said: "The problem is that when you're a kid if you color the sky yellow and draw square tires, your teacher tells you 'no! the sky is supposed to be blue! and tires are supposed to be round!' and that's what kills creativity. By the time you become an adult, it's pounded into you what the world is supposed to be like, and people don't know how to use their imaginations anymore."

I've gone off on a tangent now, sorry.

I guess what I'm trying to say is thanks for all the memories dad. You rock!