Dad Drive

I have this beautiful memory of driving my dad’s yellow Mustang through the two lane roads of rural Illinois. I’m in his lap, steering. He’s manning the pedals and smoking a cigarette. It’s just us, classic seventies rock and a Summer wind pouring through the open windows into our fluffy hair.

Of course almost none of that is true. My dad had a Pinto. My brothers were there, probably arguing about which Star Wars guy was the coolest and it was most likely Fall. The cigarette thing was true.

But it was magical nonetheless. No play dates, no schedules, no destinations. Just meandering.

My schedule has been a little goofy this Summer (like all Summers), so I agreed to drive Elijah and Luca around one Saturday so they can play Pokemon Go in new, un-hunted areas of Chicago. I figured it was as close to 1970’s dad meandering as I could get.

We gathered up the neighbor boy and cousin Finn and headed off. I let them be 100% in charge of directions. “Go left! Go towards the big lake!” they’d shout and then I’d almost kill us swerving to follow instructions. We ended up in a fairly sketchy part of Roger’s Park, but I assumed at worst we’d just be out four phones. No one approached our car due to the intense nerd waves emanating from within.

Eventually, and maybe with a little undetected Dad guidance, we ended up at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Yes, I see the irony of bringing 4 kids to a place with real animals to hunt fake animals, but I did manage to get them to peel their faces out of their phones to see a monkey wailing on his privates.

It was blazing hot and we stupidly didn’t bring water, so I decided to drive us home before I had to explain to the neighbors why their boy was panting like a dog.

I pulled onto Lake Shore drive and was immediately bored with NPR. Because NPR. So I flipped around the dial and stumbled across WLS, Chicago’s classic rock station. Their playlist that afternoon featured only songs that were burrowed deep into my brain. Songs I inexplicably knew every word to. Songs that brought me back to my Dad.

I rolled the windows down and let the heat pour in. I sang at the top of my lungs, “Some people call me the Space Cowboooooooy! Some call me the Gangster of Looooooove!” If I smoked cigarettes, I would have smoked cigarettes.

I looked into the rearview mirror and checked to confirm I was making a beautiful memory. They were all buried in their phones, hunting Pokemon. It was perfect.