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Never was this more abundantly clear to me than during the annual motorcycle trip I used to take with my dad.
We took the weeklong-or-so trip every year for 15 years, and my dad, even in his late 80s, would revert to the role of parent generally about four hours into day one, when would be trailering our motorcycles to our destination.
That was the point at which I usually took over driving his truck and trailer, which meant my father would then explain to me how to use the cruise control. He did this every year for 15 straight years.
One year, right after this conversation, I realized I had no idea how to use the weird cruise control in his new truck. So, like any 15-year-old would, I refused to ask him how it worked. I just tried to drive, for hours, at a constant speed while I pretended to use the cruise.
A few years ago, while staying at my parents’ house in Michigan, he started to explain how to use their new pull-out sofa in the guest room.
ME: Well, I’ve been sleeping on pull-out sofas for 40 years. So, yeah. I know how to work a pull-out sofa.
The real issue for me, of course, is the fact that I realize, when I look at my father, that I am looking into my own future.
For a few years near the end of our rides together, my younger sister, Lori, came along on the motorcycle trip, and she rode on the back of my dad’s bike.
During one trip, as the three of us stood outside an ice cream parlor, I could see all of our reflections in the shop’s windows, and we stood there, our cone-holding arms at the same angles, our heads tilted in the same way. So we already eat an ice cream cone exactly like he does.
