My senior year in high school I bought my dream car; a metallic beer-bottle brown 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner.\u00a0 It was 383 cubic inches of muscle car with chrome-plated side pipes, G-60 wide tires, and bench seats.\u00a0 It rumbled when it idled.\u00a0 As God as my witness\u2013it rumbled!\u00a0 The kind of deep rumble you don\u2019t feel any more with cars\u2013the kind that starts low in your chest and spreads throughout the rest of your body.\u00a0 Just sitting in it caused your testosterone levels to rise. \u00a0It gave you a little tingle in the pit of your stomach and had a high pucker factor when you floored it and it stayed in one spot while the rear tires smoked.\u00a0 The smell of burnt rubber permeating the air caused male adrenaline levels to spike another notch.\u00a0 Pulling up beside other classic muscle cars of the day (1970 Plymouth \u2018Cuda, 1969 Dodge Challenger, 1970 Chevelle SS, or a 1967 GTO) at stop lights and revving engines in preparation of a race brought on an adrenaline induced hypnotic trance in a testosterone-laden young man with too much power and too little sense.<\/p>\n
A couple of years after graduation I joined the Navy and left this treasure at my mother\u2019s. It sat beside her house untouched for over three years.\u00a0 After I was discharged I came home to an unrecognizable dirty heap that wouldn\u2019t even start.\u00a0 But I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on it\u2014a new battery; new points, plugs and tune up; new belts; oil change; new head gaskets; and flushed the cooling system.\u00a0 Miraculously it fired up and purred like a sleeping lion.\u00a0 A little more elbow grease with soap, water, and wax and it sparkled like a freshly polished diamond in the sunshine.\u00a0 I vacuumed the interior and added a new pine tree air freshener, and it was ready to hit the road.\u00a0 I loved that car.<\/p>\n
And so it is with daughters.\u00a0 They require hard work, consistent maintenance, and attention to detail in order to weather the storms of growing up.\u00a0 When left unattended in the elements of life they rust, corrode, and fail to operate properly and safely.\u00a0 Our daughters need the same tender, loving care that we lavish on a car that we treasure.\u00a0 They need the same consistent preventive maintenance and attention to detail that we give to all the mechanical gadgets or tools we love and rely upon.\u00a0 Without that loving affection and care from their father, many girls end up as an \u201cunrecognizable dirty heap,\u201d treasures left to the ravages of our cultural climate.<\/p>\n
When I got married I traded that car in for a more practical ride, but I still have dreams about that car and \u201criding through mansions of glory in suicide machines.\u201d\u00a0 Fortunately, I was blessed with a baby girl to lavish my care upon.<\/p>\n
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