My Dad Taught Me to Flash

My Dad Taught Me to Flash

Long before I viewed a car as an extension of my personality (which would make me about eight) I was taking driving lessons from Dad. In, around and over the backseat of my Dads 1954 Ford I was eagerly learning the required levels of driving skills and verbal encouragement, or abuse, that was required in the piloting of the family truckster.
Hands were held at ten and two o'clock on the steering wheel, all the while constantly checking and rechecking the rear and side mirrors. Loud vocal encouragement to the driver in front of you ( and here use the term "ya bonehead" ) to make that left turn. And when someone blocks traffic to try to parallel park, you again use the term bonehead in your soliloquy of his or hers ineptness. And then on completion, or on the abort of linear parking ( window up or down doesn't matter here, it's more a personal reflection ) you state that you, although never done it, could have parked an 18 wheeler in that space.
My Dad talked more to the traffic than he did to me, my brothers or even my Mom, all put together! He was a react type of personality most of the time behind the wheel. Through vocalization, horns and hand gestures he let his fellow drivers know just how he felt about the kind of job that they were doing behind the wheel.
Lately its been my observation that we all trained from the same father! But we've all seem to have forgotten the one proactive thing he taught us. Flashing the headlights. The one thing that sets us apart from the animals, well that and thumbs. Remember when our dads would flash the headlights to warm the traffic coming toward him of trouble ahead. An accident, animal, pothole or fallen tree in the road ahead would warrant flicking the lights on and off or high to low beam. A radar trap, or "ya bonehead your brights are
on!" would also induce my Dad to offer visual stimulant to on coming traffic. And in turn they would respond by flashing back, a head nod or the ever popular four fingers raised off the steering wheel. This is how our dads (well mine anyway) helped their fellow man.
So when someone flashes their headlights at you, it's meant to help. Some people react like I'm shooting laser beams at them!
Don't display the one finger opinion or angrily mouth some words as you pass by me, cause I have no idea what you're saying ( unless it rhymes with bonehead ). I've just been where you're going, and I want you to exercise some caution is all I'm trying to convey.

Bob Niles



bobby did this