I think anyone who's met my dad loves him (with the small exceptions of traffic court judges and the entire staff at Zoots cleaners--long story).
GB's a big, gregarious guy who believes life's too short to drive the speed limit and and pizza is a vital food group. He also believes that it's okay to follow an ambulance if there's traffic in Boston and he's late for a Sox game. He's a peaceful, friendly person most of the time (unless you take the parking spot he was planning on using, drive slowly (the speed limit) in front of him, or are elderly and confused in the Logan Airport parking garage).
Other GBisms have included covering various holes in his condo walls with posters ("It's like the Shawshank Redemption in here!") and solving the issue of a car rejection sticker with strategically placed autumn leaves on his windshield (a plan, he later admitted, which became more difficult as the seasons changed). But out of the many quirks of my favorite dad in the world, this is one of the finer moments:
It was January 2000, and I had invited my friends Heather and Kevin to come visit me up in Massachusetts during our winter break from college. Oddly enough, I had invited them to go skiing. Why, I have no idea. Seeing as how my first ski trip ended in complete and utter humiliation (story to come at a later date) and my second trip wasn't a great deal better, I cannot comprehend why I would give it another shot. My only guess is that I wanted to show Heather and Kevin (children of southern parents) that the North DID have things to offer and was not just full of rude people dressed in black (a stereotype that was not helped by our trip to Boston later that week).
Our ski trip was a failure, much as I feared it would be. Only rather than failing due to sheer embarrassing circumstances, it was just plain soul-crushingly freezing and every slope was a sheet of ice. Also I was with people who grew up skiing in Maryland and Pennsylvania, sometimes in t-shirts (?!) but that's neither here nor there.
GB, always the guy to offer a ride whenever needed, was taking us somewhere in town. Car trips with my dad always involve good conversation, and at the time he was telling us about the latest issue at the insurance agency where he worked: cell phones.
If you're reading this and happen to be under, like, 28, please know that around the turn of the last century (how old can I possibly sound right now?!) cellular phone ownership was rapidly increasing and no longer limited to the Zack Morrises and hot-shot businessmen of the world. More people were buying them and the dangers of operating phones while driving were fast becoming evident.
My father, calling upon his expertise in the auto insurance industry, explained that these fancy portable calling devices just have so many buttons. They can easily distract drivers, cause fender benders, and worse. Though Heather, Kevin, and I understood his theory, he decided a visual aid would be necessary. He dug around in the console of his Maxima and pulled out HIS cell phone, turning around to show us the intricate display of buttons and switches. Then, almost as if on cue, he rear-ended the car in front of him.
Rather than be angry or upset, he just paused, looked at the car in front of him, then turned back to us and said: "What are the odds? I was JUST talking about how cell phones cause accidents!" I think he was relatively pleased at how efficiently his point had been proven. The woman in the car in front of us, however, had a look of shock and horror on her face that I only WISH could have been captured on film. However, young ones, this was before cell phones had cameras...
We didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but after determining that there was no significant damage to vehicle or person, we cracked up. I'm not sure what Heather and Kevin ended up thinking about the state of Massachusetts, but I know they DEFINITELY enjoyed their time with GB.
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