The origination of the Volvo Dad
What we inherit from decades of driving
I’ve talked about the sanctity of driving here before, particularly when it comes to my dad. Given Father’s Day, it seemed only fitting to talk about the legend that is Old Man Mitch.
I don’t know which my father loves more: cars or driving. They’re intertwined and he devotes ample time to both — there’s a lift in the garage and he and his friends swap engines like other people do books. He builds, disassembles, and rebuilds. It’s a sleeves-up spirit he’s tried to instill within us since we we young, albeit in typical Boomer fashion.
When I turned 16, my dad handed me a Polaroid of his 1971 Ford Maverick wrapped around a telephone pole.
He told me to put it in the glovebox and not do anything “stupid.”
Over/under, my father has probably driven across the country 30 times; he moved my sister across the West arguably with a Thule box, a glovebox of Good ‘N Plenty, and the entire Kraftwerk discography on his iPod.
He never complains. Instead, he finds national parks and diners and categorizes his favorite gas stations by state. His favorite is Maverick, by the way. (Sensing a theme?) He’s set a precedent that’s hard not follow — regardless of how long a drive may be — because we live in the shadows of the kindnesses we’ve been given, deserved or not.
Driving is something inherently synonymous with my dad, like beer or the Bears, a simple through line that’s carried us quite literally through decades and distance. It’s an action that’s defined how I think of him, though the meaning behind that definition has continued to expand and surprise me, the older we both get.
During my childhood, driving was less something my dad did and more of a space he created—face time we otherwise didn’t get, especially during the years he supercommuted to Boulder. My most prized memories are just snapshots of us being together in the car, going somewhere, to do something more or less ordinary.
-Listening to Saturday Morning Flashback with Lin Brehmer on XRT on the way to breakfast.
-Sitting in the back of the single-engine Piper Cherokee with my coloring books as he logged flight hours above the corn fields.
-Clutching Megan’s 2 foot long communion cake for dear life as we sped home to a party that had already begun.
-Sleeping in the backseat of the maroon Volvo 240 on the long journey home from whatever volleyball barn du jour Megan or I had to play at, on any given Sunday.
I couldn’t tell you what we talked about during these drives, but I’ll always be able to tell you what car we took, where I sat, and where we went. What we wore, what traffic was like, and what the season was—tiny but important time capsules my brain digs up, every so often, if only to remember how lucky I am that they exist.
It’s easy to assume that someone else’s relationship with their parent has always been the way it appears now—that what we see from the outside looking in is, more or less, the same dynamic that’s been at play for years. That those who are close stay close, and those who live at arm’s length have been maintaining that distance for decades.
What’s harder to appreciate is how such dynamics change—enduring, surviving, and growing—despite the absolutely brittle nature of time. My parent’s divorce is oddly comical to me now: given its degree of batshit, it ended up being a gift to us all, more than anything, because it fundamentally shapeshifted the most important relationships in my life, including the one with my dad. After years of being ships in the night, existing in the same time and space on weekends, we became diner regulars. The subtle but pervasive feeling of precariousness that followed me around as a kid began to diffuse with a parent who finally had the time to be around.
Always true to form, my dad spent so many of those post-divorce years simply driving me where I needed to go. Soccer practice, swim meets, volleyball games. Track invitationals, group projects, driver’s ed. Doctor’s appointments, haircuts, sleepovers. Concerts, Costco, and Lowe’s, (to buy yet another gallon of paint as I re-did my room, again.) The patience of a saint, the vocabulary of a sailor.
“That’s your turn arrow goddamn it, only shade of green we’ve got!”
As someone who hates traffic but loves to drive, it’s been nothing short of humbling to realize what an investment of time this was. We spent so much time in the car— and while some may say that’s the inevitable curse of suburbia, I also think it’s a testament to the monotonous tasks we do out of love. Driving is an underrated way we show up for other people, a role of connecting worlds and creating consistency that takes years to fully crystallize.
But when it does, you can’t help but stop and notice it, because it’s hard not to see so much of yourself in the quiet habits that covered the distance to get you where you are today. It’s corny as shit to say that it’s about the journey and not the destination, so I won’t.
What I will say is that who’s driving often changes where you end up, for the better.
Shout out to all the dads this weekend, especially OMM.