Introductions

I joined "Facebook" recently. It is a way to stay in touch (connected) with family and friends. It brought back, stragely, a memory of going to work with my Dad when I was a boy. The memory crept back in as I was thinking how I use to be so "connected" years ago. If I didn't know so and so, I knew someone who knew so and so. If they didn't, they knew someone who did, and on and on. Some connections, I put in my back pocket, save for a rainy day, ya never know. However, as time goes on, all those connections have gone away. Anyway, back to the memory.

I use to go with my dad to work at the gas station (back in the late 60's early 70's). I would get up with him at o dark thirty. I had a sense of excitement, hangin' with Pops. We would go in, the station was 24 hours then, so I would just hang around with him, wait on some cars, and mostly just walk a round the property, listen to the men talk, the way only men can do and as a kid try to make sense of it all. It was a busy station, on the corner of 67th and Jeffrey, where the LSD (Lake Shore Drive) started on the south side of Chicago. My dad met a lot of people, like Cashius Clay, Gayle Sayers, George Seals and a few others. Oh yeah, Cashius is now Mohammed Ali.

In the early afternoon, I would start getting tired and Dad told me to go lay down in back of the Impala. I would crash, but eventually I would here my Dad's voice and he would bring someone over to meet me. I would try and wake up, throw out my hand for a shake and the response from the strager would be always something positive and it up with the concluding remark, "So, your "Dick's" kid". Side Note: My dad was named Richard, but his nickname was Dick, another thing that was hard to grow up with. Anyway, the person I would meet was always in a suit and a hat (back then it was GQ) and they always seemed like giants.

So, what is the point of this entry, only that I wish I would have remembered the names of the people my Dad introduced me to! I always wondered why he did it, he knew I was sleeping, perhaps, as I can only say somewhat reservedly, that he was proud of me, I was his son and that was that. With my Dad, I was always connected.

(Another fond moment, that I will have to share at another time, is that I usually went with my Dad to work on Sunday mornings and the the radio would be playing in the bays (mechanic and grease monkey areas) with Chicago gospel preachers and music.)

So, to my new relationship with Facebook. I could only hope to introduce someone to someone else that perhaps would enrich their life a little and bring a ray of hope to this blue globe that keeps circlen around another day.

Bill