His Garage

Today Dad's best friend came over and started what surely will be the long process of cleaning out Dad's garage.   Don has been his friend and fellow mechanic since long before I was born, so it's good that he is the one to start this.  Just very sad.  Mom says he and his sons took the jack, and the creeper, and the vise, along with a bunch of other things.  Somehow it's those three things that hit me most anyway.  I remember him thousands of time using that jack, and his feet sticking out from under the car on the creeper.  And I remember playing with that vise, endlessly.  I probably drove him nuts, like Emma will do now, playing with something mindlessly while talking to him.  Turn, drop, turn, drop.  When you turned the vise handle, it would slide through the other way.  Turn, drop, turn, drop.  Clank clank clank clank.  He loved me every minute I drove him nuts, too.  Mom says Don stopped about halfway through and came in the house to tell her he really misses Dad.  Me too.  Me too.