Closer to Mother or Father

 Was I closer to Mother or Father.

My mother and father each had their roles in my life. My mother was the homemaker and did all the domestic things that an at home mother would do. She made the meals, washed the clothes, and kept the house in order. I actually spent more time with Mom than Dad but have great memories from each of them.

Dad on the other hand was the outdoor project kind of person. Dad was the one that taught me a lot about cars, how to fix them, and how to modify them. I had an old Ford Fairlane that I had driven to college for the last year of college. When Mom and Dad was going to be out of town for a few days, they left me on my own to watch over the farm where we lived. Since I would be leaving for another school for mechanics in St. Louis, I asked Dad if he was going to do anything with the old Ford. He say no not knowing what I had in mind. I decided it would be fun to cut all the metal off the car except for the roof, hood, trunk, and floor. Then I cut the car in half and shortened it up to eliminate the back seat. Needless to say Dad was not happy but Mom came to my rescue and reminded Dad that he had said he wasn't going to do anything with the car. I was told years later that after I left for St. Louis, the car was dumped in a deep ditch out in the middle of one of the fields for erosion control.

Dad was a creative fabricator. He decided that he and I should build a machine that was the goliath of machines. It was made from truck and car parts. It started with a solid truck frame with the truck suspension and wheels from an International straight truck. Motor mounts for a Ford flathead V8 engine were made to hold the engine in place. Of course it was stick shift with a Ford 4 speed transmission. Here's the interesting creative mind of Dad came into play. He fabricated mounts to have the International truck transmission right behind the Ford 4 speed transmission. Then from that transmission he attached it to the truck rear end which was a two speed axle. The number of unique gears in this beast was 50. The slowest gear in the drivetrain was reverse in both transmissions which caused a forward motion. Ah yeah but we're not done yet with Dad's creative mind. Knowing that the machine was filled with power, traction was needed. So Dad shortened up the width of a front axle to mount in front of the rear axle. Then he took two sets of truck tire chains and made them long enough to go around both sets of tires which made it look like a caterpillar track. Needless to say it was practically unstoppable. The finishing touches was a old forty something Ford cab with a seven foot snow blade in the front. I often wonder what ever happened to the beasty machine. My sister doesn't seem to remember this master minded machine. I think we gave it the name Goliath. 

It seems that I liked things that Dad did more but I'm not sure that meant I was closer to him than Mom. I do have a creative nature that Dad had but it took a while to mature which frustrated Dad to no end. In my younger years I was much better at breaking things than fixing them. 

I am definitely not a organizer like Mom was. So I would say that I was close to both but in different ways.