Wow! Tony, That was quite a speech. I guess basically what you are telling us is to enjoy life while raising a family. It can be done but it can be tricky. My dad made a lot of concessions to give me a good life when I was growing up. I on the other hand didn’t. Even though I didn’t make a lot of money in my younger days I still managed to have some cool cars and motorcycles while raising our one child in a healthy environment. I saw other guys that had even cooler and more expensive cars and stuff but at the cost of the quality of life to their families. On that sticks in my mind was a guy that had a really radical Corvette dragster. This was in the 70’s and I was doing custom paint work on cars and bikes. I go over to this guy’s house to do some lettering on his car and couldn’t believe the situation. There sat this knock out Vett in a garage full of tools that would make Bernice drool with envy in a neighbor hood that was not that great and the house was a run down stucco with trash in the yard. The wife was at one time cute but looked pretty tired with three kids in dirty tee shirts and faces with runny noses. He was a nice enough guy but I couldn’t warm up to anyone that could spend all that money on a car and let their family live so poorly. My advice is keep the X1/9 and work on it at your leisure but not expense of the family. I mentioned that I made the comment that I might be interested in the X 1/9 to my wife of a mere 47 years and got the squinty eye look. I am not sure if it was for the X1/9 or the possible trip to Nebraska. So if you keep the car you will not only avoid kicking yourself later on but may help me make it to our golden anniversary.
In the very early 70's I was custom painting on cars and motorcycles. My wife worked at a news paper so I took care of our almost 16 month old son. I would be in my garage with the door up working and my son would be in the driveway usually on his tricycle. He would occasionally get bored and want some attention. I tried to give as much as I could but some times I just had to get a project done and didn't want to stop so I would give him a big rubber mallet and showed him how to pound on a cinder block with it by saying POW! Anyone would say that was not a very useful thing to learn but........One day my neighbor was having a birthday party for their little girl and asked me if I wanted to let Jason come over. I said sure and handed him over the fence that separated our two properties. They had a Piñata and decided to let my son go first. They also waved the blind fold. So there stood my little boy with the stick they had handed him not knowing what to do. I was leaning on the fence watching this so I pointed at he Piñata and said POW! The kid went into immediate action swinging that stick like mad. He didn't break the thing but got in a few good whacks plus clearing the patio before the neighbor mom managed to get close enough to disarm him.was about 4 or 5 and I was working on my '70 Duster 340.
He was hanging around and following me and playing with tools as well. I don't remember what I was doing but I had picked up a hammer and was banging on something. I would stop and start and bang away 3 or 4 times.
Then I heard something strange. My head was under the hood and as I started tapping I heard an "echo" of sorts. 1, 2, 3, 4 and stop, 1, 2, 3, 4 and stop. Then I went 1, 2, 3, and stopped and 4th bang came from outside the car. Guess who picked up a hammer and started banging on the door panel? Thankfully there was NO damage...
HA!
My dad has late stage Parkinson's and dementia now. I bring this story up to him often when I see him hoping he'll snap back into reality, if only for just a bit. Sometimes it works.
College had distanced us some, but that experience brought me closer to my dad than I had been in a long time.
-Bill