I was moving before the alarm Thursday morning, since I wanted to get to Sams Alignment and Brakes before they opened. I dressed, and had Boone moving shortly...by the time he was in the shower, I went out to check on Dad, as he had been staying in the pop-up camper. There he sat, with the light on reading his Bible, shirtless, with his reading glasses on. He looked up, "You guys ready?"
"Yeah Pops, just checking on you, since you weren't in there already..."
"Just doing some reading...I'll get my shoes and shirt on and be out in a short."

I turned away quickly and shut the door, hoping he wouldn't notice how much that moment had upset me. When I was a young boy in Aug. of 1970, my parents were preparing to move from Kansas City Mo. to share the 40 acre farm in Oklahoma that Dad had bought for his parents. They sent me ahead early so I could start 1st grade, as Oklahoma's birthday cutoff was Nov. 1 and Missouri's was Sept. 1. Mom didn't want me to be held back a year, or be under her feet for another year depending on the story you choose to believe. So I spent Sept-Oct, and Nov. with my Grandpa and Grandma Gebhart, and really enjoyed the opportunity to get to know them quite well, an opportunity my 3 younger brothers would never have. The rest of my family arrived around Dec 1st...on Christmas morning my Dad walked into his parents house to find Grandpa is his favorite recliner, hands on the bible resting open on his chest, reading glasses still perched on his nose...and he was no longer with us.

Some people may read this and say, "What's this got to do with Mopars or DragWeek?"
Well, Racing our Mopars is a passion, a glue of sorts that has held our family together for 30+ years. It's where some of our fondest memories have been created, and when I look around at racing events and Drag Week, and Moparts, and I see the familys and the combinations of familys and friends and I don't think our situation is all that uncommon. I realize my Dad is 9 years removed from a 4 way bypass, and 4 years older than his Dad when he passed...and then a moment like that just makes you think, how many more times do we get to enjoy days like this together? There are no guarantees, no "We'll get it done next year" promised to us...maybe that's why we try so hard to make it happen sometimes, I don't know...