Old Friends & Old Cars

I made some time to visit a best friend going way back to high school. Although Rob and his wife Julia and I live just twenty minutes from each other, I don’t visit him often enough. I’ll see him now and again at family events as I’m good friends with Julia’s sister Angie and the rest of her family. But I cannot think of the last time I made the effort to go visit him. Today I made that a point.

It also encouraged me to pull out of hibernation my old high school muscle car, a 1971 Pontiac GTO. Yes, this is the same car Rob and I used to cruise around our hometown of Darien, Connecticut. Long before I had a motorcycle, Rob and I shared a passion for Pontiac and other Detroit-built muscle cards from the 1960s and 1970s. Too often I listened to my dad and his friends tell stories about old cars they wish they never sold. I made a pact and a promise back then that I’d never sell or get rid of my 1971 Pontiac GTO. It’s a true original.

This was long before I owned my first motorcycle. It’s funny as my dad always had a motorcycle in the garage, but because he served as a first responder firefighter and ran a family auto-body business, he saw too many riders peeled off the tarmac of the turnpike and roads where we grew up. So he forbids any of his sons from owning a motorcycle while sleeping under his roof, as he would say.

I had plenty of opportunities to ride, however, and much to the chagrin of Dad. Rob had a motorcycle before me, and so did another high school buddy Ken Hauck and others. So once I moved out, I bought my first motorcycle.

So great to spend time, drink coffee, and reminisce about the old days and still share dreams about the future.

Life is fragile and the most precious gift we can share and give each other is our time. So use it wisely. Don’t wait to find time to do something you know you should. make the time. It’s the only way you will do it.