In 1967 my father began his career as a math teacher and a running and baseball coach in the city of New Britain, Connecticut.  As a graduation present from Bates College, my dad received a loan from his father for his cream-colored, Camaro Convertible, which sported a black racing stripe. The price of the car was nearly 75% of  his salary from the ’67-’68 school year, so this purchase was a luxury in its day. Nine years later, when I was around six weeks old, my parents, now a teacher-runner-dad and a runner-mom decided to sell this beautiful collectable car.  They had just adopted me from Catholic Family Services, and decided to also take on a more practical and very forgettable vehicle. When I began my own teaching career in the year 2000, my father also wanted me to drive a convertible. Dad decided that a Camaro like the one that my Grandpa Luigi (Louis) had purchased back in ’67 was too risky for the New England winters, and instead picked out a 1997 Saab Convertible. I drove my Saab for nearly twelve years, when I wasn’t borrowing one of his more practical vehicles for winter driving, such as his Toyota Tacoma pickup.  My daughter often enjoys riding in her pop’s big red truck. I know that my father feels extremely fortunate to be sixty-seven today, although his hair is now shocking white instead of rich black.  My dad graduated at the height of the Vietnam War, and some of his college classmates never lived to be fathers, much less grandfathers. Growing up I was able to spend more time with my dad than most of my girlfriends did, and during the school year, my own daughter spends more waking hours with my dad than she does with me and her own math teacher daddy. ’67 may have been a fantastic year for the Camaro, but my dad’s sixty-seventh year turned out to be pretty good as well, as his few hours of leisure and part-time teaching was broken up with the hard work of caring for his toddler granddaughter. My daughter will have to wait twenty years for her convertible, but in the meantime she is lucky to have healthy parents and grandparents who make sure that she learns and has fun all year long. Recently, Annie and I posed with Lillian's 1967 Camaro. This car has been beautifully maintained by her son Stanley for the past fifteen years.