My first car was a bright red 1964 El Camino with a white interior. Dad gave it to me, we worked on it together, and I drove it through high school. It was my hot rod.

Then I blew up the engine. We put in a couple of replacement motors, but it never ran quite the same, and eventually the car just sat. Nearly twenty years went by. At one point a neighbor backed into it.

Dad kept it anyway.

Dad took the El Camino on again, with help from my friends. He did most of the work: a frame-off restoration, taking the car far enough apart to rebuild it properly.

Nobody told me. For a couple of years my first car was a major project, people I knew were working on it, and I went about my life with no idea. I am still impressed they pulled that off.

So when Dad brought up the El Camino that day, I braced myself. I tried to reassure him that it was only a car.

Then he took me to the shop.

The restoration was nearly finished. The car that had sat for most of two decades was there in incredible condition.

He had put in an LS1 engine, positioned farther back, and a digital dashboard that kept the look of the original. There was Bluetooth audio and a removable steering wheel. He had reshaped the original vinyl bench by hand into much more supportive seating and fitted five-point harnesses.

Every one of those details was work I hadn't known he was doing.

In December 2018, Dad rode with us through Wynwood. We stopped beside a sculpture made from tires, our boards still lit against the painted walls. In February 2019 he asked me to help him buy his own XR, and I posted a welcome to the float family.

As of September 2026, he is 70 and has more than a thousand Onewheel miles behind him. He has spent years handling generators and practical logistics at Stokebird, and he still comes out to ride.