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My brother and his wife had two kids. Still do. Both are boys, which makes me an uncle twice. You know how some people pronounce “aunt” like they are British while others say it like the little critter, “ant”? Well, I do the same with “uncle”. Some people – okay all people save one – pronounce it as if they are being pinned to the floor by a bully, while others (me) say it like that part betwixt your foot and your leg: “ankle”. So to me it’s either “aunt and uncle” or it’s “ant and ankle”. It makes perfect sense to me in a relative sense. Which is a bit surprising as most of the world doesn’t make much sense to me, relative or otherwise.
Regardless, I have never been either “Uncle Todd” nor “Ankle Todd” to either of those young lads; just Todd. And not even that, very often. Y’see, not only was I 1,200 kilometres away when both Chris and Spencer were born, but I was 1,200 (or more) kilometres away for pretty much every step of their lives as well. I was the very poster child of absentee ankles; the epitome of unavailable uncles. I was quite simply never around. This ankle was sprained. I attended Chris’ christening and made it home every single Christmas but otherwise I got nothing* except this ticket.
I’m glad this ticket is about Spencer – the younger of the two – as that previous sentence is inadvertently rather Chris-centric. Chris…christening…Christmas. Jesus!
While Chris surprised me by joining the military out of high school (and didn’t surprise me by excelling at it), there was never any doubt that Spencer would live his life in and around cars. He quite simply was always fascinated by anything remotely related to the automotive world. It probably started when my dad gave him an electric car – the kind you sit in and drive – when Spencer was barely a year or two old. I don’t know how old he was to be honest, but he was certainly too young to be driving. I remember him ramming that thing top-speed straight into the dining room table, backing up with a laugh and doing it again.
Actually that might have been Chris; Spencer would be more likely to have been poking away under the little Fisher Price hood with a screwdriver and an oily rag. Regardless, I can tell you that by the time he was fifteen Spencer had already bought and sold more cars than I have owned in the last forty years**. I’d bet that at this very moment he has more cars in his driveway than he has spoons in his cutlery drawer. But I’m the automotive outlier in this regard; I certainly come from car family. My dad could name any car’s make, model, and year from a hundred paces, my brother can do the same from even further away. My mom used to race at the local track when I was a young ‘un, as did my uncle. My brother raced for a long time. To this day you’ll find them all glued to their tv’s every Sunday during NASCAR season.
Anyway, once he hit fifteen Spencer was finally old enough to try his hand at stock car racing and on August 24th, 2012 I was honoured to be in the crowd for his first ever kick at the quarter mile. In all honesty I was in town for a Bruce Springsteen concert at Magnetic Hill but I tell you i was thrilled to find myself in the bleachers at the Petty Speedway*** for Spencer’s big debut. It’s not like I missed a whole lot of school plays, hockey games, or dance recitals along the way – to my knowledge neither of my nephews engaged in such activities as they were growing up, but what would a bad ankle like me know about it? Anyway, it was great to finally be at something that one of my nephews was doing.
I think he raced twice and I’d love to say that he took the checkered flag both times but I am much too addicted to truth for such romanticisms. Quite the contrary; obviously something overwhelmed him because he had a hard time keeping his car on the track. I remember him tearing up the infield as much as the asphalt, even though he spent most of his time all alone at the back of the pack. I couldn’t tell you how many more times he tried racing but I don’t think it was too many. He ultimately decided to stick to the backstage life of the automotive world: under the hood. I can’t imagine how many thousands of dollars he has saved by giving up on racing so early in his career. Good move, Spencer.
But short as it was, of course Spencer’s trusty old Uncle Todd was at his inaugural race. Always there, that ankle! Every dance recital, every science fair, every spelling bee…everything!
*That said, I did host my nephews for one visit to Ottawa each, during which I spent more time with them than I had over their entire lives, accumulated.
**I am currently on car #9. 1) 1982 Buick Skylark; aka The Boozemobile. 2) 1984 Toyota minivan. A workhorse that was a big part of an insanely fun time in my life. Music tours, camping, hundreds of gigs, university…you name it, that van did it. 3) Some kind of Subaru station wagon. I never cared for it, in more ways than one. 4) 1992(?) VW diesel Jetta. A Volgon brute of a car. It was the first vehicle I crossed Canada in. 5) 1994(?) Honda Accord, which was probably the best vehicle I’ve ever owned. I don’t remember ever having it in the repair shop, not once. 6) 2000(?) Mitsubishi Montero. Big, ugly, comfortable, and completely out-of-character for me. 7) 2009 Mitsubishi Outlander; to date the only new car I’ve owned. Gosh, I liked that car, especially the way the back hatch folded down. And the sunroof, and the console, and the drivers seat….It rusted out so bad I ended up selling it as parts to an hourglass factory. 8) 2018 Ford Escape. The Escape was less than a year old when I bought it through a government auction. It had been used as a policing/security vehicle during the G7 summit in Charlevoix, Quebec. Believe it or not, the RCMP figured it would be cheaper to buy six hundred vehicles and then sell them off a few months later than it would have been to simply rent them. I paid $21,000 for a $34,000 car with just 7,222 kilometres on it. After putting over 50K kilometres on that car I just sold it for $20,000.
Finally (so far), car #9 is a 2023 Chevy Bolt all-electric EUV. I’ve put 7,000 kilometres on it already and I still love it. Who cares about saving the environment?!? Who cares about saving so much money on gas, oil, and repairs!?! The thing is quite simply super-fun to drive. It handles like a bumper car, and who doesn’t love driving a bumper car?
I can’t believe the stupid New World Order evil oligarchy hand-wringers made me drive lame-ass gas-powered cars for over thirty years. Jerks.
***Although Saturday nights at the Riverglade Speedway just outside of Moncton made up a huge chunk of my summertime memories as a child, I do believe this was my first and only time at Petty Speedway, also on the outskirts of Moncton. And while the shiny-new pee-troughs in the bathrooms were rather impressive, this old bundle of nostalgia still prefers his memories of the greying run-down creaky splinter-bleachers and crumbling concrete track at old Riverglade.
Todd Man Out 