Dad - getting pulled over

My dad always had the strangest response to getting pulled over. I can remember him being pulled over by the police several times while growing up. Now first of all, I would have to say my dad is a great driver, my mom is for that matter too. My dad probably isn't the most responsible driver by the book, but he always managed it well, hasn't been in an accident that I know of.

I'll get to his typical response in a moment, but a quick lead in story first. My dad had picked me up from MATHcounts, an after school Math club/program that I was offered to start way too late in life. He's driving us home, probably had other things to do, maybe even someone else to pick up later, who knows. He's speeding, not excessive, but over the speed limit. Now, speed limits are typically just a suggestion in town, but whatever. I'm in the front passenger seat explaining some interesting math problem that I just learned about, when all of sudden, my dad snatches the papers out of my and seems really interested. Don't get me wrong, my dad always did a good job of being interested, he always likes numbers and math problems. He grabs the papers from me, and starts asking me questions about the problem. Then I notice that a police offer is behind us with his lights on. 

Here's where my dad's usual response to getting pulled over shows up. He pulls over, stops the car, and immediately jumps out of the car. He starts calmly walking back towards the officer's car. 

Since he was always out of the car, I never really got to experience the discussion with an officer, but I would almost always ask. Understandably this would make the officer quite nervous at first, and I believe an officer pulled his gun out one time. In this case, my dad noticed the officer while driving, knew he was speeding, and immediately grabbed the math papers to look like he was involved and overwhelmed by me and all of the other things he was keeping up with hat day. So he tells me that he explains to the officer that he was very busy that day, and just wasn't paying attention to his speed at that time. 

Sandals

Not the resort...

7th grade - black Adidas that split behind the toes and blue/orange that wore through on the big toe from sliding papers under doors on my paper route.

Puma sandals from 2001. Eventually they split on the sides, had to duct tape to hold them together. Became the infamous duct tape sandals. They were super comfortable, apparently unsightly. Was shamed for wearing them to Laura's LPN graduation...

Dad - Tornado/Storm at Six Flags

So this will hopefully be the first of many memories of my dad. I will also type up some about my mom too.

So. Six Flags. We would go to Six Flags St. Louis at least once every summer and as we got older we would get a season pass and go at least twice. One of my parents would drive us up there, drop us off for the day, and then pick us up when the park closed. 

When I was about 13 or 14 my dad took us up and dropped us off for the day. We had a pretty average good time, but towards the evening a thunderstorm moved into the area. No big deal, we headed into some theater/show to stay out of the rain. During the show the lights kept going out, and I didn't even put it together that the building was losing power due to the heavy wind and rain  

Keep in mind, this is before every kid had a cell phone. My dad had a cell phone, so we could contact him if it was really necessary, but he had no way to contact us. Eventually they pretty much cancelled the show, and announced that the park was closing due to the storm. There had been a very small tornado that touched down in St. Louis county.

My dad has always paid attention to the weather, but probably even more so that day, since his kids are outside by themselves at Six Flags. So we've just been kicked out of the theater into a serious downpour, but we're not the only ones. The entire park of people are now trying to leave in the heavy rain and light flooding of the walkways.

We're now supposed to leave the park and wait over an hour in the rain for my dad to come pick us up. Before we can even leave the theater building, here comes my dad walking up to us kids! First of all, how he got in the park without paying, while the park is asking everyone else to leave is amazing. Then, he somehow manages to find us in the midst of all of the people evacuating the park at once, in the rain, in the dark. 

Thanks Dad!

Getting fashion advice from my sister in 7th grade.

I remember being in 7th grade, and I had a friend who looked fashionable and cool in a pair of overall jeans. I started asking my mom if I could get some overalls, you know to be cool. Then my sister starts questioning me about this to make me think about it a little more. She basically wanted to know why I wanted overalls, I told her my friend looked cool in overalls. She gently suggested that I wouldn't look cool in overall jeans. This was hard for me to accept, understand, and believe. Regardless, I gave up on the pursuit. Then a few days/weeks later she points out another kid at school wearing overall jeans. She says, "do you want to look like farmer Louis?" No, not really...thanks!