Winner! (305/365)

November 1, 2015 – I spent today scanning photos of Dad for Friday, and it was a trip down memory lane.

So although I did not physically pick up my camera and take a photo, I did nothing but work with photos all evening. And this one qualified as a great memory involving Dad.

In 1984 he bought an AiMHi raffle ticket…and won a car! The photo above was taken as a promo shot for the Prince George Citizen and the photographer was our then neighbour, Brock Gable, though I am pretty sure I never saw it until today. I found it in an envelope, and Brock’s name was stamped on the back as the photographer, that’s the only reason I knew that bit of information.

I found out about the win because several friends called me up and asked for the first ride, and I had no idea what they were talking about. I think it had been announced on the radio.

Since Dad had a truck, and my brother already had two vehicles, and Mom and he were separated by that time and she had her much loved brown car anyway, it became mine to drive. Kind of a cool way to get your first car!

I probably wouldn’t have owned a car for some time if this little prize hadn’t been won, and I’ll always be grateful for it. I’d only done my drivers licence the year before, when I was 16, and although I could drive because Dad had taken me out the day I’d turned 16, and then promptly enrolled me in Young Drivers after I discovered on that day that I really, really liked driving!, more than Dad cared for.

But I had to learn to drive standard before I could have this car….. Dad took me over to the parking lot at Pine Centre Mall and laughed and laughed as I jack-rabbitted around the lot. Eventually I figured it out.

And I’ve never owned anything but a manual transmission since.

Funnily enough, I wasn’t the one to put the first scratch in it, Dad took care of that when he popped the clutch backing up to the garage. I did get in a few accidents in it though, and it stood up quite well.

I was rear ended in the middle of an icy intersection once, by my brother’s friend. Also int eh middle of winter another guy failed to stop at a crossing and I couldn’t get the car stopped on the sheet ice, so he t-boned me.

And we were run off the freeway down her on the coast in it when a family decided to stop in the fast lane of the freeway and use an emergency vehicle only crossing to make a u-turn and sent cars flying every which way. Kirk ditched it but couldn’t stop as someone followed us into the ditch, so he did this crazy Duke’s of Hazzard thing into the edge of oncoming traffic and then back down into the ditch to clear the crossing the crazy people were using to turn around. The guy behind us didn’t make it and plowed straight into the concrete, leaving his front wheels under his doors somewhere.

Fun what you discover when you start picking through old boxes of photographs. It’s interesting to connect the dots backwards and see where you came from, in a different light.