"Dickerson's Auto Repair"
From 1983 to the time of his passing in 2001, my father ran an auto repair business: “Dickerson’s Auto Repair”. Despite all of my unresolved issues that I have with the man, I will always cling to one undeniable truth. That truth being that I could roam the earth ala David Carradine in “King Fu” for decades and never come across another human being who could hold a proverbial candle to my old man in the auto repair game. The word “genius” gets thrown around a lot, but when it came to fixing what ailed your car - no matter what the issue - my father was somewhat of a savant. Frequently he’d tell absolute strangers what was wrong with their car by simply hearing it run for just a few moments.
You’d think that being in close proximity to such talent would’ve rubbed off on me in a significant way, but it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely confident that I know more about cars than your average dude out there, but that’s a low fucking bar if you knew most dudes. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t do all that I could to soak up all of that extremely valuable knowledge when I had the chance. I mean, my excuse at the time for not being at my pop’s shop more is that he could be rather unpleasant to be around. But now that I’m 50, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s been this writer’s humble opinion that I was being somewhat of a snowflake. More times than not I find myself feeling like I need to cut my father some slack: He was a rather complex human being, which most humans tend to be, and if I could go back, I’d endure what I’m sure were just minor behavioral quirks from a guy raised in the Jim Crow era for the greater good of having a rolodex of automotive knowledge.
That said, I’ve started seeing a therapist, and her viewpoint is that I’m looking back with some pretty powerful rose-colored glasses. While I was talking to her about my dad, certain things that I hadn’t thought about for decades started to flood my consciousness. Like his mood swings: One minute you’d be laughing about something with him, the next he’d be cursing you out about God knows what. Looking like he wanted to fight you. A common thought that eventually became something that I started to say out loud as I got older, was “How did we end up here?” Also, he’d have no problem humiliating you regardless of the size of the audience. He was exceptionally good at this. His favorite thing was telling anyone who happened to be in the shop that day some personal piece of business of yours. “You know he has to go to summer school this year. That boy ain’t never gonna be shit.”
So, with the help of a therapist, I’m learning that it’s ok to forgive people - just don’t lie to yourself about the shit that went down. While I still wish that I was able to extract some of that invaluable car knowledge, I completely understand why I started avoiding his shop like the motherfucking plague. It was a survival tactic. All this time I was so focused on forgiving the old man, I really should've been forgiving myself.
That said, the money that I could’ve save over the years on auto repairs could have fed some small countries. Oh well.