So perhaps you are wondering…what has become of your sons now that they are grown men? Let me think how to answer that. Hmmm…
When they were growing up, they were feisty, pugilistic at times, competitive, unpredictable, spontaneous, creative, and fun.
Now they are grown men and they are…feisty, less pugilistic, competitive, unpredictable, spontaneous, creative, and fun!
Today I’m going to talk about the oldest one. First, I’ll attempt to describe what he does for work. When people ask me, he told me to say he has a company that offers the ultimate supercar driving experience in a high performance vehicle on a privately owned, state-of-the-art track. This thrill-of-a-lifetime driving opportunity is available to individuals as well as for corporate events.
I think my description of his work is more realistic: he has a company that provides absurdly expensive super cars for thrill seekers to drive at terrifying speeds on a twisted road. And since Burt is the driving instructor, he gets to ride with the inexperienced drivers. Comforting thought.
Let me describe a video he has posted on his Facebook page. (Hint to mothers: unless you’re prepared to handle the disclosures you’re about to read, don’t ever stalk your child on FB!)
The video shows a young woman in the car with the driver. (He isn’t seen, but now you know who it is.) She has on a crash helmet—that fact alone should tell us something—and her head is plastered against the seat from the impact of the g-forces, her long blond hair billowing in the breeze windstorm, hands splayed dramatically across her heart. Her lines are easy to remember: “Oh my gah! Oh my gah! Oh my gah! This is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome! OK, OK, OK, I don’t want to die! This is awesome, this is awesome, this is awesome…” You get the picture.
I ignore the window that shows the speedometer of the vehicle my son is driving. I’m sure it’s broken, anyway. No car goes that fast. Right?
I did laugh out loud when the dialogue between them is heard over the roar of the engine and the whine of the car rounding a curve:
She: “So do you drive this car around all the time?”
Burt: “No. It’s my first time!”
Maybe his penchant for fast, high-performance cars is a backlash for our making him drive a super conservative, slow-moving, well-used black Camry when he was in high school. That’s when I learned it’s important to let our child have a little bit of input into what he drove, especially when he already had to suffer the indignity of hauling his four little brothers to school and seeing the little ones safely off to the elementary building. I still wonder how they all fit into that car. Burt said one time that they looked like clowns at the circus when the impossible number of clowns jump out of a Volkswagen. That word picture did give me a little perspective on things.
Burt has come a long way since those days. He is a most delightful son (as they all are), and a man of character and integrity. However…there are days that I have flashbacks to his boyhood and I wonder, not how he will turn out when he grows up, but rather, will he grow up?
That’s my boy.
P.S. He’s the same one I wrote about in the post below. :)
What Boys Do When They Grow Up
