You're listening to WALT.

Hooooooom.

Hooooom.

Homemade Radio.

I got this new car a couple months ago.

And it's a manual transmission.

And every time I shift gears, I think about my dad.

First gear is for those first moments after soccer practice.

When he'd start the Mazda and ask what CD I wanted to listen to on the drive home.

I always picked the greatest Western themes

because I liked imagining the leather on the boots of the cowboys in the songs.

Stretching and bunching like the leather on the gear shift.

I used to pretend that we were cantering past sun-baked maces instead of the Bradley Shopping Center.

Second gear is for the way he used to slow down outside video vault

so we could get a good look at the new movie posters in the window.

Third is for the first time he let me drive us to Atlanta's pizza on Friday night to pick up our takeout order.

Fourth is for the time Grandpa Fell.

And Poppy was too tired to make the eight hour drive from Alexandria to Ithaca for the third time that month.

So he let me take the Mazda on the highway for the first time.

And he fell asleep.

He woke up to the sound of the engine roaring because I was so excited to be driving that I was doing 80

and forgot to shift into fifth.

...