RAH RAH RAH !

I did something last weekend that I know I would truly never would get around to doing so on my own. It's something that has become somewhat of a tradition on the second weekend of June the last seven or so years. I went out and again attended the Pocono 500.

Yes, the Pocono 500 is a NASCAR event. Yes, NASCAR. Vvrrroooom, vrrrooomm. T-shirts and no collars, big crass tattoos and the people who feel compelled to have them be seen, and many not so subtle affirmations of being an American. That and much more are part of the conventional expectations at a NASCAR event. I'm amazed at how popular these race events really are among the many who figuratively live between the two coasts.

The Pocono race track is approximately 110 miles from downtown New York City. For me in the suburbs, it's a quick freeway 85. In the last few years, I've blocked-out Friday, Saturday and Sunday specifically for this yearly event.

Friday are practice and qualifying for all the racers and their teams. Saturday is for more practice and a minor-league (ARCA) NASCAR race. Sunday is the big event. An event that draws more than one-hundred thousand people who all gather in otherwise nowhere Pennsylvania to watch about fifty loud cars all turn left at 180 MPH for approximately four and a half hours.

Two among those many moths at the above described event have been Wifey's uncle Ron and me for the past seven years.

This tradition of heading out to "Pocono" indirectly got started because of a couple of guys whom I work with. About nine or so years ago, before Wifey's uncle became one of the subjects of this post, two crazies who I work with somehow got me to agree to head out to Dover, Delaware with them on a Sunday in June to catch a NASCAR race. I had never been to one of these things and thought that a one-time attendance would be it.

It was an unforgettable experience. Traffic headed to the event was stressfully slow, the weather was hot, I drank and ate too much and I got a farmer's tan from sitting for four hours next to some good ol' boys who had legally brought in two coolers full of beer and two bottles of booze. The camaraderie that had blossomed with these two yahoos who sat next to us only contributed to me getting more and more gassed as the event wore on. Add the 200 mile drive back home to that day and you get the picture. I felt I would never go to another one of these things unless some of the baseline conditions could change.

Who won the race that day? I don't remember. I didn't care. I had gone there to unwind on a Sunday. It didn't really work out that way.

Anywho, a couple of months later, Wifey and The Savages and I drove to Buffalo, New York to go see Wifey's family. We were to also go and spend a day at her uncle Ron's summer home out near lake Erie, on Lake Chautauqua.

Ron is a "motor head". He went out and bought one of those 9-foot satellite dishes back in the 1980's just so that he could see as much racing as he could possibly catch that was sent straight from heaven. Certainly, NASCAR racing, his favorite, was one of the many different racing events that he was able to see and enjoy. Something that was impossible to do 20 years ago without a satellite dish at home. Today, with all the cable channels, some outlet will carry the big race on Sunday and everyone of the races throughout the February to November NASCAR racing season.

So, in some of the small talk out at the lake on that occasion, I mentioned that I had been out to Dover a couple of months back to see the Dover 400 NASCAR race.

When I mentioned that, it was as if I had said the most engrossing and captivating statement Ron had ever heard. He went on and on about how he had seen that race on television. I asked him questions about some of the minutiae that I did not understand about the race itself and he lectured like a fully tenured professor would to his student. I asked he answered. I spoke he listened. He talked and I was fascinated at the profound manner that I could see that he enjoyed the sport. It was really something to see him so animated.

Then I asked him one salient question that started this whole yearly Pocono racing tradition. I asked him what races he had ever been to and he answered that he had never been to one ever.

I knew he was a NASCAR fan. I knew about the satellite antenna he had. We had just spent quite a number of minutes discussing the sport, almost to have alienated others to our banter. When he mentioned that he had never been to a race before, it was the most incongruous sequitur to our conversation that I could have imagined. I couldn't believe what he had just answered and I did not know what to extrapolate regarding that feedback. I was somewhat stunned.

I shrieked pointedly, "WHY?"

His answer piqued some anger, some pity and some sympathy from me. He very simply stated that no one had ever invited him to one and that he knew of no one that would trek away to one of these races with him.

Ron has one son who lives in South Carolina. But, he has four married daughters who live within minutes from his home. Everyone of those daughters has a husband. Everyone of those daughters and their husbands fruitfully enjoy what Ron does for them EVERY FUCKING DAY OF THE YEAR. Whether it's daily baby sitting/care/school pick-up. Or, plowing the snow on their driveways with one of his trucks during their brutal snowy winters. Or, being a major help with some home improvement task that are needed by one of the sons-in-laws. Or, the many dinners that he slings over at his home because someone is working late someday. Or, summers at the lake house for that matter. He's a philanthropist in every sense of the word (and so is his wife) to all these daughters and their husbands.

Not one of them have ever stepped-up, gone out of their way, spent a few bucks and done something that considerate for him. And I know that they haven't because if something like that were to ever occur, it would trickle over to me with the mantra..."Look at what we (me) did for our dad (father-in-law)".

Pigs.

I wrapped the conversation and subtly changed the subject and then immediately at my first chance, and off to the side, I grabbed Wifey's ears and attention. I told her about the above and she agreed that it's probably all true. I discussed with her that you should not take "no" for an answer and to please discuss with your Aunt, about the possibility of having them over for the Pocono race since it's the one geographically nearest to both her uncle and me.

Wifey then did. Ron's 70 year old eyes lit up and he became a little animated. I saw that exchange from a distance. I felt gratified. That happened about 8 years ago at his lake house.

It has come to pass, over the course of these last few years, Wifey's uncle Ron and aunt Sylvia have been coming over religiously from Buffalo every year. We have great seats. We splurge and get the premium terrace seating under the shady awning. We get food, drinks, alcohol and plenty of bathrooms all for the price of our premium ticket for the weekend. Burly security, contoured bench seating and we're away from any riff-raff. It's not unlike flying first class in an airplane during a rough long flight. It's a good thing.

So, last year after Ron and I had gotten back from the Saturday events, Wifey and I had to attend someone's party at their home that evening. I had mentioned to one of my neighbors, CH, where I had been all day. CH, a lawyer who lives a block over from our home and who was at this party, incredibly had a similar reaction to me mentioning NASCAR. The same kind of reaction that I elicited from that long ago conversation with Ron.

I told CH that sometime in January, we get an order form in the mail that inquires whether we want to perpetuate the seats/tickets that we have purchased in the past. I told him that we're always asked if we care to purchase more. I added that I'd give him a call then. He had mentioned that he would love to go with his father. I said that I always go with a fatherly figure myself and believe that that would probably work out very well.

That's what happened this time around last weekend. We met CH and his father at the track. It was a "more the merrier" type of thing. CH and his father got their NASCAR cherry popped last Sunday and it was all good except for one thing that actually stirred me a bit.

It's all about this time of year and it has to do with Father's Day.

Last Sunday's Pocono 500 was rain delayed for three hours. We did a lot of waiting before the track was readied enough to start a shortened race. During that waiting, we all drank and ate and commiserated. CH's dad seemed to have the right attitude. On an occasion that CH and Ron were away and CH's dad and I were sitting and waiting and tending a drink in our hands, he intimated to me that even if there were no race today and even if it were suspended until the following day, that for him it was no loss at all.

"How's that?", I asked.

He said that spending an entire day with his son was good enough for him.

I felt so orphaned when he said that. I felt a little pained about what he uttered. I felt envious about CH all of a sudden. I immediately began to think about what it would be like to still have my father around. Whether he would be there at that moment to concur with what CH's dad had just said.

I will never know.

I sometimes wonder about the last 22 years and all those Father's Days without him since. I also wonder how deeply the death of my brother Frank back in 1976 may have affected him, especially since my brother's death came very near to Father's Day back then.

I remember the very subdued Father's Day of 1976. It had been only six days after we had put my brother's remains to rest. I remember peeking into my father and mother's bedroom to see my father sitting in a chair idly with a burning cigarette in one hand and a drink near bye. He was staring out the window motionless. Only the steady rising plume of smoke off the cigarette looked alive.

I didn't disturb him. I didn't have the guts. I didn't know what to say. We were all hurting. He may have been hurting a little more sharply then on that day than the rest of us were.

Today, I believe that I have subliminally compensated with a father figure during this time of year. I have projected that onto Wifey's Uncle Ron. All those weekends off to the races the past 8 years taking place very near Father's Day have been very comforting for me. I know that he enjoys himself very much when he visits.

His son is not around to go with him and my dad is not around to go with me. This NASCAR thing the week before Father's Day every year has been like a well oiled machine. It's been very comforting.

I consider myself very fortunate.

Happy Father's Day.

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