My dad and his car.

My dad drove a blue 1990 Honda Civic LX. He was 6 foot 3 inches tall, if he wasn't stooping over. If I remember right. So you might think that this car wasn't a good fit for him. But you'd be wrong. He folded himself into that car every day and he happily drove himself to work or to church and other meetings. He loved that car.

I can see him in it. His window all the way down with his elbow out on the door.

He liked to use the cruise control, even around town. I remember looking over to see the cruise control set to 35 mph while we drove down Park Center Boulevard toward home. Probably we were driving home from Wendy's. But he would set the cruise control and then take his foot off the pedal and cross his ankles in front of his seat.

If he had the radio on, he was usually listening to talk radio. Sometimes just the news, but often Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Laura. I don't know who else. I believe he liked them, but he listened analytically, and I remember him telling me stories sometimes about advice Dr. Laura had given to a caller and asking me what I thought of her advice. Was it right?

If we were on a long trip and he needed to stay awake while driving or at other times just for fun, he would put in a cassette tape he had of Grand Sousa Marches. And he would listen while tapping, leading the music like a drum major, and singing bum-ba-duh, dun-da-dah.

There were the years he drove me to high school. I don't know why--there was a bus--but he did. The Civic was a few years old by then. He would drop me off and then continue to his work. I did take the bus home. My senior year year, it somehow came to be that I drove his little blue Civic to and from high school every day.  I don't remember asking for this to happen. He just made it so.

But when I went away to college, the Civic became his car again, and I think he was happy to have it back.

When I was preparing to get married in the summer of 2000, I remember very clearly that my mom and dad came down to Provo and took Jeremy and me out for a nice dinner. At this dinner, they surprised us by telling us that as a wedding gift, my dad would be giving us that Civic. To have as our very own. This was a huge relief to us because we had exactly NOTHING when we got married. Seriously. So to have a paid-for car given to us, no strings attached, was pretty much a miracle.

He bought himself a new car, a Subaru wagon of some kind. It was a bigger car, but it didn't seem to fit him quite as well as that little Civic did.

Oh, and one more thing. In the two years we lived in Provo after our marriage, that Civic ended up needing quite a few repairs. It wasn't my dad's fault, and it wasn't ours. We were supporting ourselves, and we would never have asked my dad for money to pay for car repairs, but once or twice I got a check from him in the mail with the Memo: "Civic Extended Warranty." That's how my dad was. Generous and clever and funny. And a lot more.