Yike.

I posted a comment today over at Og's place that lit a fuse in my brain and finally exploded just a few minutes ago.

I said something about my Dad and my 1977 Toyota Corolla SR5. That caused some sort of neuron-networking that had me thinking about Dad and why he would have said something dismissive of the Japanese in 1977, due not to his wartime experience (he was in Europe at war's end in 1945) but due to my Seabee Uncle Carl's time as a, erm, guest in a Japanese prison camp...

And it occurred to me that I am now farther away in time from the day Dad said that than he was, then, from the day the war ended in Europe.

It seems like yesterday...and I now understand what Dad meant when we talked (rarely, unfortunately) about the war and how to him it seemed like yesterday...like all he had to do was travel to France and pick up a .45 and the jeep with his 81mm mortar and he'd be back there.

I can see as plain as day that little yellow car sitting in the driveway about twelve feet from where I'm sitting right now, hood up, me bending over the fender with my hands doing something to the engine, Dad wearing (probably) a tan workshirt and a pair of jeans, watching me do whatever the hell it was, and making that comment about Japanese engineers with tiny hands.

Fuck me, I laughed for a week. Just like I'm laughing now.