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When I was a kid, I asked my father how Santa was going to get into our small apartment. After all, we didn’t have a chimney. I grew up in Northwest Iowa, a rural community where everybody knew your name. It was a nice area to live and a safe place to call home. My father, a United States Marine and College Professor, answered my question.
“Well son, he is going to come in through the patio door.”
“But it’s locked, Dad"”
“He’s Santa and he can just come right through.”
Although I was satisfied with his answers and went to bed immediately that Christmas Eve, here he was, a highly educated man, stumbling to explain how Santa would come through a locked door. He played it cool, but when I look back, I see him grasping for words. That Christmas morning, I opened up a box containing a bright yellow, remote control monster truck. The box was marked “from Dad,” not Santa and was, without question, the best gift I received that year. I hugged him, then proceeded to run over all of my Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars in homage to Bigfoot.
The automotive world is a calling I cannot always explain. It started when I was a child, riding around in my father’s Chevy truck, watching Speed Zone (I liked the Lamborghini Countach), lining up my toy cars on my bed, and then proceeding to crush said toy cars with my new, remote control monster truck. I would grow up ...