I got in and a couple of things hit me quickly. 1) He had a very strong air freshener. Lord, save me from strong air fresheners. But this was an attempt to cover up heavy cigarette smoking. 2) He was blasting Van Halen. 3) Mullet!

He told me I could go without my mask because he was fully vaccinated. I told him that wasn’t an option for me, because I was getting ready for surgery and I had a bunch of rare diseases. He chuckled and said okay. We drove in silence for about 6 miles.

The songs went back and forth between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar as the leads. I finally broke the silence and said that I knew someone who was the godson of Sammy. The driver perked right up. He said Van Halen was one of his first concerts; Black Sabbath, or maybe Kiss? was supposed to play with them, but the whole band had “the clap,” so Van Halen had to play the whole time. They played a bunch of their stuff (which was a short list) and then played a bunch of covers. We talked about how the band changed from David to Sammy. They were ready for a change, but you can’t deny the showmanship that David had – and also the destruction.

My driver revealed he is a grandfather now with 5 granddaughters. He said that his goal wasn’t to say to his kids, hey, your kids are going to be just like you, and that’s the ultimate revenge. No, he wanted his granddaughters to be just like him. So he sent a guitar and amp to his oldest granddaughter. She apparently rocks and she was waking everyone up at 6 am. Another one got coffee beans very early one morning, and it wasn’t appreciated. Mission accomplished. There were swear words thrown. It’s clear he loves all of the girls. A few times he mentioned he was divorced more than once. These may be the better relationships for him.

One of his sons is going to school for nursing. I mentioned that I had also gone for RN but didn’t make it all the way through. I also told him that I had a bunch of brain surgeries but was ultimately allergic to the devices they were implanting. He said, “Oh, so you’re allergic to the silicone?” Kinda floored me. This didn’t fit anywhere in our topics or really, in what most people know in general. Hell, even most of my doctors don’t know about silicone allergies. But it was time to shove me out the door, so that was it.

I’d like to share the art of my first art teacher. Somehow he survived a bunch of crazy middle and high school kids, and now we get to enjoy his work: Mike Odden

Looking for mullet art? How about a t-shirt? Maybe you need a visual demonstration? And you know, ladies can rock mullets too.

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