Racing with school bus #180

Each school day (except when I'm traveling a couple days a month) I get to drive Christopher 5 miles to school---there is a country song that says you "don't have" to do something for your kids, you "get" to do it... (obviously they have never met my kids!).  Anyway, we always are trying to beat bus #180 at the same time every morning where the two lane highway merges into one lane---the bad news is that I'm in Debbie's mighty 4 cylinder Civic....you press the pedal and the motor pitch changes from a low hum to a high whrrrr (kind of like stepping on a cat), but the car only goes 2 mph faster.   The other day I yelled out "I'm geeving her all I've gawt, Captain" in my best Scottie on the USS Enterprise voice, but Poot wasn't impressed as the bus slid in front of us.   All this reminded me of my dad, Robert LaRoy Coutts Sr., (Christopher could have been named Robert LaRoy III, but Deb said "why pass on a bad name three times in a row?"---so we named him after his uncles Chris and Bill, which is questionable in it's own right).

Anyway, my dad had a 1965 bright red Mustang fastback with a high-performance 289 and a 4 speed when other dads drove big Buicks or tiny VWs.   Since it was a family car too, he installed a trailer hitch on it to haul the pop-up camper trailer with.   One time when the car was loaded with us kids and the trailer, we were challenged at a stop light by a loud-mouthed youth in a musclecar.  All the kids yelled "get him, Dad!!!" as the light changed, and my dad smoked the tires off the line with the trailer weaving behind him....sometimes I miss those old V-8's where power was more important than gas mileage.

Another classic Robert Sr. moment occurred after we bought an old go-cart from a friend of my dad's.   It was in pretty rough shape, but after we put lots of time and dollars into it, the thing ran as fast down the street as any car.  In fact, we used to race our neighbor's 383 Road Runner whenever we saw him coming down the street, and could stay with him until he opened up his headers.  As you can imagine, the peeps on the block grew tired of us hooligans barreling back and forth at all hours with an engine that sounded like a chain saw.   One day my dad overheard two neighbors complaining about that go-cart:  "the other night those Coutts boys were driving that damn go-cart in the dark, and I was ready to yell at them, but I looked again and it was Dr. Coutts driving it!!!"   I know now where I get my mavericky attitude from--my dad was the biggest deliquent I knew for much of my childhood--supplying us with fireworks, motorized airplanes and race cars, bb guns and shotguns,  go-carts and minibikes....it's a wonder we survived!!   It does inspire me to make sure my kids know about all the dangers of the world (by showing them what not to do while having fun doing it)---I know my dad would be trying to beat that bus each day too!....til next time....Bob