Virginia's Toast

Here's a toast that I gave towards the end of the Wake:

For five winters I made the road trip to Lake Chapala, Mexico and back with Frank. But in a larger sense, I’ve been “Going down the Road” with Dad all of my life. When we drove through the southern United States, the red-neck radio personalities and fundamentalist preachers took over the dial and we just couldn’t escape their bizarre take on the world. So Dad and I would imitate them and send them up, making each other laugh all the way to the Mexican border. I had such a good time cutting through that headwind of bigotry with him!

Ride 50,000 kilometers with Frank Edward Howard and this is what you’ll learn:

· Don’t take any wooden nickels from Daddy Warbucks.

· Stay on the outside looking in at the mob scene of “Vive le Quebec libre!”, because from that vantage point you can easily unravel the notion of “pure laine” anything.

· The individual is far too valuable to be used as landfill at the dump, so don’t lie down for the bulldozer!

· If you’re ever caught in a snow squall, breathe through your third anus.

· Always lean into a curve but watch out: the emperor not only has no clothes, but you have to keep him that way.

· And always go ‘round and ‘round until you find free parking… It’s the Holy Grail, that free parking.

I don’t know whether I can keep all this in mind, Dad. So why don’t you become the ghost in the machine for me now. I want to be able to tune the radio to F.R.A.N.K., so that your grandchildren can hear you. Give me the wiper fluid that’s laced with your W5. Please haunt the GPS so that we’re no longer tied to the road, but can pull out and out… And out in that ultimate crane shot, way out in deep space with its painfully clear view of our mortal connivance on earth.
My fondest hope is that you’re eating the most artery-hardening eggs-sausage-spam-on-spam breakfast in a Diner on the edge of Saturn’s rings, with Carl Sagan at your table, wanting to know if quantum physics could ever make good TV? And you can bet that Marshall McLuhan wants to horn in on that conversation with you!

Free at last, Dad…
Que le vaya bien!

VirginaHoward March 7, 2008.