It Runs in the Family

My dad has always been my hero. He's been a firefighter longer than I've been alive (41 years, can you believe it?) as well as a mechanic. When I was younger, my mom and I would joke that he had "Mechanic Magic" because I swore he could fix anything just by touching it. No joke. I still don't know how he did it.

He was born in 1958 in Beach Haven, New Jersey. Growing up, he listened to rock music (what is now considered "classic rock"), primarily bands and artists from the '70s, and some from the '80s. Disco was also a major genre of music that was going on back then, but he stayed away from it for the most part. (I guess I'll never see him with a crazy afro and bell-bottom pants while he boogies in the club. Sigh.)

I asked him what specific bands he listened to, which were his favorites. He gave a snort and said, "I can give you specific, but there's too many to mention." In no specific order, he listed: The Doobie Brothers, Deep Purple, Elton John, Pat Benatar, and Boston. His favorite though, is The Beatles. Even after they broke up, he was still listening to them on 8-track tapes.

I have been to exactly one concert in my life, and that was an Imagination Movers concert when I was 8. My dad, however, has been to at least 36 concerts (he counted the ticket stubs he had saved), but has been to many more. "Sometimes they got lost after the show, or left in pants that went through the washing machine," he said, laughing.

My favorite story he told me was when he and his friend decided on a whim to stand outside in the rain to try to find last-minute tickets to an AC/DC concert in November of 1983. I could try to do the story justice by writing it out, but I'll let you listen to my dad tell it instead:

Also note: when we went back to check, the face-value of the ticket was $13.50 for a floor-level seat.

It wasn't his favorite concert he ever went to, though. That title belongs to when he saw the original Doobie Brothers reunited, or Bruce Springsteen. (The Springsteen concert went on for 3 hours straight. I'm so jealous.)

When I was a kid, my mom had to go into work earlier than normal on every third Monday. On those days, my dad would take me to school. He had a CD he would play full of burned music. I can list the first 10 songs in my sleep. One of them was Livin' on a Prayer by the rock band Bon Jovi.

The song would start, and we would sing along together, or my dad would mumble the words while I said nothing because it was seven a.m. and I had no energy to move. But there's a lyric in the song that says "Take my hand; we'll make it, I swear," and when Jon Bon Jovi would sing it, my dad would reach over across the console and hold my hand. 

It wasn't a big thing. Just a really small moment that we got together on our Third Mondays, listening to rock music and a little bit of country, but those memories still mean so much to me. A few months ago, he gave me the CD. It's still the best gift I've ever gotten, and I doubt there is anything that will be able to top it.