An email from my dad:

Just got done reading your blog. Kudos.

Prior to that I was watching “Shine a Light” & had a thought. At my eulogy, you could open with:
My Dad & I were roadies for the Rolling Stones. He was in the pit, I was on sound crew. The stories
we could tell.

You can take it from there.

Have to get back to the garage to dry my wood.
dad

My dad is obsessed with having the coolest funeral ever. I’m not making this up. I have an envelope containing his final wishes.

Not that Dad is dying or anything.  He just believes in being prepared.

He also speaks the truth.  We were both “roadies” for the Rolling Stones half-time show at Super Bowl XL at Ford Field in Detroit.  He was part of the crew that assembled the stage and I was part of the team that setup the giant speakers and ran the connector cables to them.

The best part? I got to be on field during the few minutes of the 2nd and 4th quarters–and I was mere feet from the Seahawks and their cheerleaders. Dad and his crew were stuck in the bowels of Ford Field until half-time.

Here’s where we were:

I was on the side lines and dad was in the middle under the "tongue" of the stage. Image © original source.

As you can see, I was off to the side and dad was in the center of the action.  The cool part was that we got to go to Ford Field for dress rehearsal a few days before–and the Stones drove within a few feet of me on golf carts, smiling and waving to our team. Very cool.

That stage is actually a bunch of tall metal carts that had to be snapped together in very little time.

Being downtown for the Superbowl was magical.  Nothing else describes the feeling or look of the city.  People filled the streets and there were millions of interesting things going on around me.

It was worth getting a call from Dad at 6 AM on a Saturday morning telling me to go online and sign up to volunteer.

This morning, I noticed I had a missed call from Dad around 8:40 AM.  Since he usually only calls me that early if it is something of great importance, I quickly called him back.

The conversation that followed could only best be described as “random.”

*RING RING*
Dad picks up:
Dad: One-Eyed Willy.
Me: …Excuse me?
Dad: The pirate from Goonies.
Me: Yes, One-Eyed Willy, you got it.
Dad: That’s all I needed know.
Me: …Why?
Dad: I was trying to think of it and I couldn’t and it was driving me nuts. So I called you, but right after I did, I remembered.
Me: Glad I could…help?
Dad: Thanks, have a good day, son–and May the Force Be With You. *CLICK*

Those who know my dad, will confirm that a conversation like this is not that surprising. Random, yes. But not surprising.  His whole attitude since crossing 50 a few years ago has been “I’m over 50, now I’m eccentric and I’ll do whatever I want.”

Why he was thinking of The Goonies, let alone pirates, at 8:40 on a Monday morning, I may never know.

The other funny part of this is that I was enthusiastically quoting The Goonies Friday night while playing Bang! with friends.  I was sticking to some of my favorite Mouth, Data and Chunk lines, and the always classic “Slick Shoes?! Are you crazy?!“