Technology, Innovation & Telecomm

My grandfather was highly regarded for many things: his intellect, his physical strength, his patience, etc. What he was not so well regarded for was his skill behind the wheel of a car.

When I was a kid, I helped my dad run a body shop out of the garage behind our house, and I remember a number of times having to help him repair my grampa’s vehicles. When you’d ask my granddad why he ran the stop sign or what made him swing into the side of some other car, you’d very likely get an answer like “I didn’t feel like stopping”, or “I didn’t think I hit him that hard”, or perhaps “It’s only a scratch”. He banged up more cars than Mr. Magoo.

So one evening when he was getting on in years, grampa, my girlfriend (now my wife) and I went to the mall in my home town. It was summer and we left the stores about the time the sun was beginning to set. I was busy reading the manual of some doo-dad that I had just purchased, from the passenger’s side, whilst my bride-to-be sat in the back; grampa driving.

As you might guess, I didn’t see it coming.

As I said, I was sitting next to him reading when the car started juggling about, followed very quickly thereafter by a huge bang, a scraping sound, another bang, and another couple of severe pitches. I thought my teeth were gonna come out of my mouth. Naturally I looked up to see what in heaven’s name was happening. It turns out that in the shadows of dusk, my grandfather had driven down a hillside that joined two parking lots at two different elevations. We exited the mall parking lot into the grass of a small hillside, only to arrive at the other lot, first slamming over the edge of the pavement and then rolling over a parking barrier.

I said something to the effect of “Grampa, you just drove down the hill!”. His only response was “Oh.”. I swear that was it. No surprise. No emotion. No further discussion….just “Oh.” By that time my girlfriend and I were laughing so hard that I had to turn my head away to try not to embarrass my grandfather. We were nearly in hysterics and by the time we arrived back at his house, my whole body ached. It was a serious struggle for us to hold it in…the result being that it was probably the closest I’ve ever come to losing bladder control.

Once we finally got home I found out that my future bride had seen it coming and had decided *not* to say anything! All she could do was watch it happen and hold on.

He was a man of many talents and great patience and a lot of what I’ve become comes from him, but a good driver my granddad was not… I miss him a lot.

Move over Mr. Magoo.