“You can’t rub dirt off a car, son. You have to float it off.”
– Dick Heston (1933-2002)
As I often do these days, I heard myself channeling an Iowa farmer — and then I heard The Younger Two of The Three asking, “Daddy, what do you mean?”
It gave me a chance for them to “know” their grandpa — and it gave me a chance to help them learn a lesson about how elbow grease and experience work together.
“Well, Dad, shouldn’t you just be able to rinse the car off?” asked The Middle. “And why do we need a wash cloth in the shower?” asked the Younger.
Sometimes it takes both — elbow grease for the stubborn stains, the troubling problems, the issues that really need investigating. And then, once you’ve got it dislodged, loosened up or figured out, it’s really as simple as knowing where to point the hose, and how the water will flow from there.
And for all these years I thought he was teaching me how to wash a car…
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