DRIVING WITH POPPI

My father had the wanderlust and moved our family every year and a half. We lived up and down the U.S. East Coast, in Sweden, and in England during the American Golden Age of Capitalism. The plot is woven around the places we lived. A common thread in the story is his driving, at times humorous, and sometimes scary. The truth is he is loved as much for his faults as for his accomplishments. My father had a mind like a steel trap, but his braininess also got him into trouble. He loved life - perhaps too much.

Dad at the wheel was terrifying at times. We tried to laugh it off. If you drove with him, you might compare him to Mr. Magoo. But it was a mental thing. His mind was always crunching away on something else. He was not mentally in the same place where his body was. Dad said on several occasions he wished he had become a college professor and not an engineer. He enjoyed getting in front of an audience and lecturing with near perfect recall of dates and facts. Eidetic memory? He sounded like he was reading from an encyclopedia on the inside of his head. He gesticulated dramatically when speaking. This is okay if you are giving a lecture, but not if you are doing over sixty down the highway and take your hands off the wheel. He had driving tickets. Lots.