From an early age, my Dad was always the driver. He drove us to school, to church, to the beach, to New England ski country up north. All kinds of road trips. He even drove the whole family around in a big Winnebago on long winding trips to the Poconos and wherever else.
Sometimes he drove me around in one of his boon trucks on his jobs to fix and maintain gas stations for Shell Oil and Amoco all over the Northeast. He would always be on the lookout for sunsets and beauty out the windows along the way and point it all out to me. He was in touch with the natural and visual worlds that many working men of his generation were taught to overlook or ignore. The moment mattered most for my father.
For a few special years, we both would join his tennis club’s bus tour to see the U.S. Open in New York City. Together, he and I went to museums, galleries, restaurants and Broadway shows, including my beloved Dreamgirls featuring the original cast. On another trip to New York, with one of his sisters, he attended the très colorful Broadway musical La Cage aux Folles. I still have that playbill, which he had kept all these years.
He as well as my mother taught me how to drive, and I began to go off on my own road: at first commuting to RISD from my father’s house for a couple of years and to Block Island for my first summers away. During my year off between colleges, he drove me up the California coast on Route 1 to tour several potential art schools. I remember brilliant passes through orange groves tinged in golden hour.
I had my first delicious taste of Kona coffee when we ate breakfast at the luxury resort overlooking Big Sur Coast where Madonna and Sean Penn had honeymooned. One night, my exhausted father miraculously navigated a rental car in pitch black along Route 1’s long and narrow path, with the wild ocean beckoning just a few feet nearby below the steep, rocky cliffs. There was nowhere to stop for what seemed like eternity. He never once revealed to me any of his inner trepidation or fears. I’ll never forget that drive.
The next year I ended up moving to Western Massachusetts for a few remaining years of school away from home at Hampshire College, then to Cape Cod for many summers of work and making and exhibiting my painting and photography. Each summer, he would drive a few hours to visit me and attend my annual exhibition openings in Provincetown. Everyone there fell in love with his smile and generous spirit.
In recent years, my father drove me in his prized red 1968 Mustang convertible to Block Island for a few lovely trips together of hiking the bluffs, exploring trails and beaches, roaming down all the so-called private roads, and communing with exotic animals at Abrams Animal Farm. The car is as playful, fun, and rambunctious as my father was throughout his life.
I enjoyed taking over the wheel and driving him around the island, giving him a break, reveling in memories that stretch back to childhood. Our family foursome first started going there for vacation in the 70s, biking everywhere, up and down hills in single file like a mini von Trapp bike rental commercial.
Over the last couple of years, my unstoppable, winning father began to slow down due to cancer. He asked me to come back and take care of him and take on the task of driving him around: to the supermarket, to the pharmacy, to his doctors, to the cannabis dispensary, to visit his large circle of family and friends, to watch his adult nephew’s team play baseball, to his longtime customers’ homes just to catch up and say hello, and to bring pizzas and soda for lunch for his family of employees working outside on bright but chilly fall days.
He had become my passenger. And I’m honored to have had that privilege during his last days on this mad, spinning earth.