Breakfast Jacks

I work in an unfinished basement. It's usually fairly quiet there, except for when the fireplace or furnace kicks on.

It wasn't so quiet when my nine-year-old son started running a pencil over one of the heater vents upstairs. The sound startled me at first and my eyes looked up at the vent. Then the sound sent me back in time to when I was his age.

I look around the cab of the brown 1975 Dodge Ram Truck. My leg rests against the CB mounted under the dash. The metal banging noise is the long CB antennae striking against the roof of the drive-thru. We're eating breakfast at the Jack-In-The-Box restaurant. We are in my my hometown of Fontana, California. My dad slows down and tries to aim to the right stopping the noise. He leans over and pays for our breakfast jacks and orange juice at the same instant the sun peaks up over the horizon shining directly into our eyes. I squint and tilt my hat to create some shade as he hands me a cardboard drink holder and a bag of food. I set the drinks on my baseball pants as my dad leans left to put his wallet back in his jeans pocket. His seatbelt clicks as we move forward to the main street of Fontana California. It's Saturday and I have the fuel to play two baseball games. As we pull out the antennae hits the restaurant again and I look up to see an unfinished basement ceiling.

My son calls through the vent to me. "Dad, do you want some breakfast?"

"I'll be right up son."

I miss breakfast jacks. I miss my dad.