Hot Rod Lincoln
(Stevenson, W / Ryan, C) Performed by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
My pappy said, "Son, you're gonna' drive me to drinkin'
If you don't stop drivin' that Hot Rod Lincoln."
Have you heard this story of the Hot Rod Race
When Fords and Lincolns was settin' the pace.
That story is true, I'm here to say
I was drivin' that Model A.
It's got a Lincoln motor and it's really souped up.
That Model A Body makes it look like a pup.
It's got eight cylinders; uses them all.
It's got overdrive, just won't stall.
With a 4-barrel carb and a dual exhaust,
With 4.11 gears you can really get lost.
It's got safety tubes, but I ain't scared.
The brakes are good, tires fair.
Pulled out of San Pedro late one night
The moon and the stars was shinin' bright.
We was drivin' up Grapevine Hill
Passing cars like they was standing still.
All of a sudden in a wink of an eye
A Cadillac sedan passed us by.
I said, "Boys, that's a mark for me!"
By then the taillight was all you could see.
Now the fellas was ribbin' me for bein' behind,
So I thought I'd make the Lincoln unwind.
Took my foot off the gas and man alive,
I shoved it on down into overdrive.
Wound it up to a hundred-and-ten
My speedometer said that I hit top end.
My foot was glued, like lead to the floor.
That's all there is and there ain't no more.
Now the boys all thought I'd lost my sense
And telephone poles looked like a picket fence.
They said, "Slow down! I see spots!
The lines on the road just look like dots."
Took a corner; sideswiped a truck,
Crossed my fingers just for luck.
My fenders was clickin' the guardrail posts.
The guy beside me was white as a ghost.
Smoke was comin' from out of the back
When I started to gain on that Cadillac.
Knew I could catch him, I thought I could pass.
Don't you know by then we'd be low on gas?
We had flames comin' from out of the side.
Feel the tension. Man! What a ride!
I said, "Look out, boys, I've got a license to fly!"
And that Caddy pulled over and let us by.
Now all of a sudden she started to knockin',
And down in the dips she started to rockin'.
I looked in my mirror; a red light was blinkin'
The cops was after my Hot Rod Lincoln!
They arrested me and they put me in jail.
And called my pappy to throw my bail.
And he said, "Son, you're gonna' drive me to drinkin'
If you don't stop drivin' that hot rod Lincoln!"
This song came on the radio when we were out driving around the other day - and as I hadn't heard it in years - I turned to Kennedy and said, "This was one of Pop's favourite songs. He'd always turn this one up and sing along if it came on the radio." Which, I'm sure, would be strange for one of my girls to picture: their Pop is not a sing along kind of guy. But if this song came out in 1971, my Dad was at the time a twenty-four-year-old husband and father of three; so young, but also solidly on the path to the humourless misanthrope he aspired to be. As I've been thinking of my Dad lately, this song is as good a prompt as any to write some of it down - no deeper meaning to the actual song, just a throw back to a time when it wasn't unthinkable that my Dad could have the tiniest bit of fun.
It's been nearly four years since I blogged A Tale of Two Dads, and I suppose this might be considered Part II: My own father is best viewed in contrast to my father-in-law, so I'm going to start with an update on the inlaws.
My mother-in-law, Bev, has been slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's-related dementia, and with a host of other health problems plaguing her, my father-in-law, Jim, has found himself on-call twenty-four hours a day taking care of his wife. He's doing this without complaint - changing wet sheets in the middle of the night, assuring her that their home is where they've been living for over thirty years (and not a vacation rental that they should think about leaving, as she keeps insisting), rushing her to the hospital when her legs swell up (which was the primary symptom that led to a bowel cancer diagnosis for Bev last summer) - and at eighty, it's a lot for Jim to handle by himself. Finally, Jim has been convinced to move closer to us, and in a move that's totally selfless and loving, my sister-in-law, Rudy, and her partner, Dan, just bought a beautiful house with an appropriate granny flat for them all to live in together - and as a bonus, it's in the same city where we live; we will finally be close enough to help. Jim will no longer need to worry about taking care of a house by himself, and even better, he won't need to take care of his wife by himself - Rudy has already proved capable of giving her Mom a shower, or helping to change her Depends, or talking her calmly through a fog of confusion. Rudy and Dan's current home just went up for sale yesterday, and we're easing the old folks into clearing their clutter in order to sell their house, too. Unfortunately, although Bev, in her clearer days, would have understood the necessity of this move (she brought her own mother into the family home back in the '70s when her mind started to go), she is now resisting the idea: she doesn't want to give up either her freedom or her stuff; she has no idea how she has been burdening Jim; no idea how sick she is. But this move will happen: we're all in this together, and that's the way it should be: when the old folks can no longer take care of themselves, their kids ought to step in.
Okay, by contrast, my parents: Nearly twenty years ago, they moved two thousand kilometres away from their children and grandchildren, retiring to a huge log home - one in need of constant maintenance and work - deep in the woods of Nova Scotia (like, deep: if they ever needed to call an ambulance, it would take at least half an hour to get to them in good weather, nearly impossible during the height of snowbound winter). For years, we have been suggesting that maybe they ought to move to town (we've given up on trying to convince them to move back closer to us where we could all be of help to them), and while each of them will separately agree that that would make sense, they each separately insist that it's the other who refuses to leave their impractical dream home. Although they have come back to visit us very few times over the years (and never together), my brothers and I have dutifully spent our summer vacations down in the woods with them; suffering my father's temper and my mother's inattention, always smoothing over the experience for our kids, as though this is normal grandparent behaviour. And I'm sick of it. At twenty-two and nineteen, my girls are adults now, and they can decide how much one-sided effort they're willing to put into their relationships with their Nan and Pop. Although I had been the one to arrange for all of us kids and grandkids to go down in February of 2016 to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary, I decided that was my visit for the year and I didn't bother going last summer. And as I've needed to take a month off work for my eye surgeries this summer (with follow-up appointments tying me here throughout the four weeks), I couldn't go again this year - but the girls went down in May for a week, and I thought that was a satisfactory delegation from my part of the family.
So, Ken was down a couple weeks ago with his family, and he came back with all the usual awful stories: our Dad yelling at his grandkids for seemingly no reason, our Mum camped out on the basement couch ("melting into the couch" as Ken reports, getting fatter and balder and refusing to ever go to the doctor) with her iPad, only appearing to make dinner each night and otherwise ignoring the family who drove or flew the 2000 km to see them. Ken eventually asked Dad what the plan was - last winter it looked like they might actually make a move; Dad even sold off the ATVs, Seadoo; y'know, everything the grandkids liked on their visits - and Dad said that while Mum talks a big game about being willing to move, her new tactic is to insist on getting an inflated and unrealistic price for their place before she'd consider selling. And as she is obviously uninterested in getting off the couch and preparing the house for sale (no one would expect Dad to participate in this "getting ready", naturally), he has decided to give up on talking about it, planning to "just run out the clock".
But as provokingly bitter as that statement was, it gets more interesting: When Ken pointed out that Dad, at seventy, can maybe keep going with the upkeep for a while yet, in ten years it will be impossible; and by then it would be even harder to make a move. And Dad said, "What am I supposed to do? I'm all alone down here with your mother, your brother and sister are up there doing nothing for us. I have no options." (Kyler was also unable to go down this year but sent his wife and son to be alternately yelled at and ignored.) And I just can't decide how I feel about that statement: Yep, I'm not doing anything for them. But what can I do? Neither of them has ever wanted anything from me, never sought my opinion or assistance. If either of them has ever said they loved me, it hasn't stuck in my memory; because they sure haven't shown me love. They give nothing and want nothing - they have never even said that they appreciate the annual trips I have made to them out of some kind of delusional self-imposed duty; as a matter of fact, the last time I was there, Dad complained about his constant stream of visitors (because I guess that's all we are) that make the locals laugh at him - and now it's not enough?
I can see my duty to my inlaws - they need help and aren't too proud to accept it - and nothing seems more natural to me than adult kids taking in their parents. But obviously that's not what my parents want; I have no idea what they want. For that matter, I can't imagine my mother consenting to having me bathe her any more than I can picture myself doing it: we have no relationship that would make that possible. And that goes double for my father. I can't even imagine my Dad taking care of Mum in an intimate way - on what planet would he uncomplainingly wash her sheets, urine-soaked or otherwise? I told Ken that maybe they should consider hiring a housekeeping couple - someone who could take care of the house and property and someone who could take care of them; they have the money - but we both know that our parents are too paranoid and private to allow strangers into their home; they really don't even want us there.
When Dad made that statement about me and Kyler doing nothing, Ken (who is the only one of us who actually talks to Dad beyond uncomfortable small talk), said, "Wait a minute, pal, I assume you're including me in that, and that's not fair. You moved away from us, and we sit up there, helpless. You remember what it was like when you needed to put first Grampy and then Grammy in a home, and that was hard for you, and you were down here with them. How do you think that's going to be for us?" He had no reply; because it's not about us. Just running out the clock.
So, this is what's been on my mind lately, and why I was charmed to hear Hot Rod Lincoln come on the radio; to be reminded of a time when I was little and thought my Daddy was the greatest; before I knew that not all kids were surprised to see their father have just a little bit of fun.