The Ride of your Life

Grandpa Pasek was a big man, a steelworker who happened to look like Pope John Paul ll. Never one to mince words, he once told Aunt Carrie that he knew she was pregnant (not) when she announced her wedding plans. I remember that he had huge hands, the size of baked hams.

Most people remember Grandpa Pasek for something else, his ability to make you confront your life head on. While in a car.

Driving with Grandpa was such an experience, that his passengers are still scarred. Aunt Rita can only say that she avoided driving with him "Like the plague."

I'll let everyone else tell you their stories, as only those experiencing a near death experience can.

Aunt Carrie is one survivor of driving with Grandpa. She says:

"After graduating from Maria I went with Grandma and Grandpa to Minnesota to visit Aunt Cathy and Uncle Mike. As we are driving he all of a sudden stops. We are on the highway. He does not pull over, he just stops. Grandma and I are worried but he just gets out of the car and says "You drive. You need highway experience." He then gets in the back seat and that was that. I drove for about two or three hours and he says "OK you are done, stop and let me drive." So I pulled over onto the shoulder, got out and let him drive the rest of the way."

Uncle Jim also had a near death, or at least a near social death experience with Grandpa. According to Jim:

"Mom and Dad were away on a trip somewhere (Probably with Card Club) and I got to spend the week at Grandma and Grandpa's. I don't know why I would get sent there all the time and not just left home alone. One day Grandpa picked me up from school instead of me waiting for the bus. Now I'm not one to complain about a ride as the C.T.A. is such a pleasant experience. I refer you to the time the bus driver sped down Pulaski yelling "If I go, you're all going with me" and crashed into some bushes in front of Daley College. So Grandpa picked me up in his gigantic, red, LTD. Now getting picked up by a parent is bad, but getting picked up by your grandfather, really bad. So I did my best to get in the yacht with nobody seeing me, and thought I was safe until we pulled up to the red light (bus stop) right outside Brother Rice. This is when Grandpa decided to ask the girls from McAuley, who were waiting for a bus, if they needed a ride. I still hear their laughter in my dreams at night.

Sometimes it was just a car thing, like the time my cousin Mike got a call from Grandpa to help him out:

"He called me over to his house because he had gotten his crown Victoria wedged against the opening of his one car garage. He was trying to back out when he got it stuck. We ended up jacking the car up and pushing it over to straighten it up and get it off the garage door. Other than that I just held on tight and closed my eyes when he drove me anywhere. I was always happy when I was older when he would just hand me the keys and ask me to drive."

But Grandpa never saw himself as a bad driver. Uncle Jim remembers one conversation in particular:

"Mom and Dad were away on a trip somewhere (Probably with Card Club) and I got to spend the week at Grandma and Grandpa's. (See the pattern?) Grandpa was driving me to Drivers Ed, but could not understand why I needed to go. He said "I didn't take Drivers Ed., and I drive fine. I can teach you". Now he said this as he came to a stop well past the stop sign causing the traffic from both left and right to come to a screeching halt. He said, "I like to stop a little further out so I can get a good view." I thought to myself, "Good view? Of What? The pick up and the sedan as they T-Bone us? The look of sheer panic on the drivers face so close to us that I can see the bead of sweat drip down his forehead?" I can still hear the tires screeching in my dreams at night. I don't sleep well."

Mostly, though, it was the heart stopping confrontation with mortality that I remember:

Grandpa had taken me to his favorite restaurant, Country Buffet, for lunch one day. As we left the parking lot, we had to make a right hand turn onto the busy street. There was quite a bit of traffic, so we waited for the perfect opportunity to merge. Finally, there's a break in the near right lane, and grandpa grabs it. But he doesn't stop there. He continues to merge right into the far right lane, directly in front of an oncoming truck. We were so close and the truck was coming so fast that I actually had the thought that this is how it was going to end for me. Somehow, miraculously, the truck driver was able to slow down and avoid the accident. He did blow his horn at us, and when he did, Grandpa yells out the window, "Blow it our your ass!" 

We all want to be remembered for something when we die. Maybe have people tell stories about us, reminisce over shared memories. Maybe not the memories that make you gasp and look towards that light at the end of the tunnel, but you get what you get. Bless you Grandpa, it's going to be hard to forget you.