Josh Davies: My Dad worked with Andy, we moved to the USA because of VWs. Herbie, Vanagon Syncro S8E5

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[00:00:24] Josh Davies, Yeah, he wanted a stampede. He's like, I'm going to make these buffalo guns. At 10 we immigrated to the US, and of course we immigrated because of Volkswagen. Welcome to My Dads Car. Enjoy!

[00:00:44] Welcome to My Dads Car, a podcast discussing our personal relationship with automotive nostalgia. And you know what? It doesn't even have to be about your dad's car. It can be your mom's, your grand's, your parents, guardians, or even a neighbor's. If it made an impression, let's talk about it. I'm just waiting for John to join us. It won't let him join in, so maybe it's not just me. Oh, good.

[00:01:13] I apologise, because it's early in the morning as well, isn't it, for you? Yeah, and I'm keeping my decibel level at a certain range, because I don't want to wake the baby. Oh, yeah. Oh, here we go. John's joined us. Apologies for that amateur delay there. Oh, I did the same. My laptop decided it didn't want to recognise my microphone or my headphones. All right. Both vital components. I tried to enter via the usual route, but for whatever reason, it just didn't want to do it today. Technology. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:01:42] Wonderful. So, okay, we'll start. Welcome along, Josh. Lovely to have you here. Thank you. Good to be here. Nice to meet you, Josh. Nice to meet you, John. Yeah. Apologies, it's early because you're joining us from the US. But for the benefit of the tape, we're joined by Josh Davis, who is the son of a previous colleague of mine at Heritage. Richard Davis worked with him for at least 10 years or so. He was our US correspondent, so to speak. And, yeah, sadly, he passed away last year.

[00:02:11] But he's left quite an impression on me. And I reached out to Josh and said, do you fancy having a chat sometime? And today's the day. So, yeah, we've got John here as well. Hello. So, yeah, Josh, welcome along. And, yeah, when you're ready, what's your earliest car memory? Yeah, I mean, it's a toss-up, you know. So, we grew up in the UK. I was born in northern Wales. And it's a toss-up between we owned, and I do not know the year. I do not know which Herbie.

[00:02:40] I think it was from, like, the TV series. But we had a Herbie love bug that had been used on set. And I must have been three or four. And we lived in this old refurbished barn on the Irish Sea, like, just south of Anglesey. And I remember just kind of – we lived up a dirt track, too, which tracks with my father. Of course, it was up a dirt track. And so, I remember rocketing up and down that dirt track in the love bug. I remember very little else.

[00:03:08] But the other kind of blurred memory is we had a Vanagon camper, like the pop-top ones. And it was majority poop brown in color, really aesthetically pleasing. I think it had at least two fires with the kitchenette in it. But we would take it along, you know, like Aberdesach and these, like, little coastal campgrounds in northern Wales, like, around Carnarvon and Bangor. And I remember, like, camping in that.

[00:03:35] And we've got these great photos of me and my little brother, like, on tiny little stools sitting out front on this very windswept Welsh field in the middle of nowhere with the Vanagon in the background. But, I mean, if you flip through our family albums, like, there's more Volkswagens than there are kids in a lot of those albums. You know what I mean? Like, that was my dad. Fantastic. And the Herbie, let's talk about that. Do you recall whether that was his car or was that a toy?

[00:04:05] I have no idea. My dad's history was, I think he bought it because I remember it being treated as ours. Like, we drove it around town and it was, like, full regalia. Like, what's the number on the 35? 53. 53, like, the big 53 plastered on the side and the front. And it was, like, that white color with the blue and red emblems all over the place. And, like, you know, as a little kid, you don't register.

[00:04:31] But you're like, why does our road car have emblems on it? And they were always like, oh, it's a Herbie. It's a Herbie. And I have no context as to what that means as a kid born in, like, the very end of the 80s. You know, I think the most recent Herbie property was, like, a bad Lindsay Lohan movie, like, in the early 2000s. So, like, there was no context to this weird car that we just had at the house. And it was always like that.

[00:04:57] You know, we had trekkers or things, you know, Kubler-Wagens and various buses. In high school, my dad imported a Synchro double cab. Oh, cool. That was bright orange that I would drive to high school, right? And that thing was wild. Like, it was bright orange. They had black bull rail bars on it. And in German, on the back, fall down. Oh, my God. On the tailgate. The tailgate. Thank you. It's early.

[00:05:25] Big black letters in German said, what we lack in horsepower, we make up for in stupidity. And, like, I was the kid that got to drive back to high school. Like, that was my kind of driver. And, like, that was just our entire childhood was, like, these weird cars at the house all the time. There couldn't have been many of those in the U.S., could there? I wouldn't have thought. No, you know, for a while, my dad owned OEV Dub. Did he tell you about his, like, original parts import store nestled in the mountains of Colorado?

[00:05:55] And he would bring in OE stuff from Germany and the U.K., and it would come in shipping containers. And he would just, like, load cars that he had bought in Europe into the container and ship them over here. And then he would sell them for, like, four times what he had paid for them. Like, that Synchro essentially paid for my undergraduate degree in college. Fantastic. Yeah. So, what age were you when you moved to the U.S. with your dad? So, I was 10. It was 98, the end of 98, I think.

[00:06:25] So, we were in northern Wales until I was six years old. You know, and that's where my dad's from. Like, he grew up in the Welsh countryside in this idyllic farm that's still in the family. You know, they're kind of, like, northern Welsh. Not royalty, but they're, like, pretty well-known family down there, the Jones-Davis family. And so, you know, my dad grew up there. My mom's Canadian.

[00:06:48] And then, of course, we moved to Birmingham when I was six because he was working for, oh, my God, what was the company there? G.S.F.? Maybe. All I remember is that, what's the Birmingham football team? Aston Villa? Aston Villa. Yeah. The owner of the company owned Aston Villa at the time as well. I don't even remember the name of the company. You know, you're little. I was, like, seven or eight. G.S.F. Was he an American that owned it? A Brit in Birmingham.

[00:07:17] So, we moved to the Birmingham UK. G.S.F. Right, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, at 10, we immigrated to the U.S. And, of course, we immigrated because of Volkswagens. So, it wasn't, like, even our move to the other side of the planet, because of my dad's familiarity with OE, like, you could point at a rubber seal on a 67 Volkswagen, like, the smallest part, and he could rattle off the part of it. I mean, Andy, you remember, like, that was his knowledge.

[00:07:42] And there was this company in the U.S. called Rocky Mountain Motorworks, who did OE, German Volkswagen stuff for air-cooled cars, and they wanted his contacts. So, essentially, that fueled our immigration over here. They hired him, sponsored the green car, all of that, and that brought us to the U.S. So, I sound super American, but it came easy because my mom's Canadian.

[00:08:06] But, yeah, like, we started in the U.K., and even our immigration across the planet was Volkswagen-fueled. I seem to recall talking to him about moving out there, and he came home after day one and said he'd made a mistake. I mean, you know, when you're a kid, you, like, don't think about that. But you know how middle-sized business Americans are, you know, like, these people who are, like, in it for capitalism. Awesome.

[00:08:34] My dad was never in Volkswagens for the money. I don't think a lot of people who are passionate about Volkswagens are. They're very expensive to keep running, especially in the U.S., I don't know. But it wasn't, like, a—and I'm not disparaging the man. Like, he did a lot for our family, and then Motorworks was great. But, like, I think the company, like, closed its doors, like, four or five years later. It didn't have the staying potential. You know, and you look at, like, VW Heritage, like, how long have you guys been around, right?

[00:09:04] Like, it takes a lot of commitment to keep a company like that running because it's a pretty niche market, especially in the States. So— Yeah, yeah. It got really big really fast. I think there were, like, 70, 80 employees when my dad joined on, you know? And it's like, it just didn't have the staying power. Do you recall what friends at school and stuff were driving around with while you were in these, what we might call novelty cars, so to speak? What were your friends driving, and did that sort of—

[00:09:30] Like, Nissan Sintras, Toyota Corollas, Ford Focuses, right? And then, like, a lot of pickup trucks, right? We grew up in the mountains, and I'm guilty. Now, I've betrayed the family. I drive a 2021 Ford Ranger. Like, you know, I've gone off the rails. And my brother's a Nissan guy, so he's had, like, 350 Zs. That's his whole shtick. But, yeah, like, all of my peers, like, yeah, a lot of pickup trucks because we're up—I mean, our hometown is, like, 8,500 feet in the mountains. You're Colorado? Yeah, Colorado.

[00:10:00] Cold but very dry. A lot of snow in the winter. Like, a lot of pickups, a lot of, like, Jeep Cherokees and things like that. So, like, the Synchro. And even Dad used to take us to school, and at the time he had a TDI Golf. I don't remember the year. Obviously, like, went over to Water Cooled, right? Because that was his daily driver. But because it was diesel, like, it roared.

[00:10:23] And it was this tiny little hot hatch that would just come rumbling up the street as loud as any of the pickup trucks in that neighborhood, you know? And he would drop us off to school. I remember that being the case in, like, middle school and early high school was that. It was, like, a dark green TDI Golf. Cool. And would your dad have the radio on? Would he listen to music? What was his— Yeah, there was—our mixtapes were a lot of comedy mixtapes, and it was, like, Billy Connolly, right? So, like, Billy Connolly stand-up.

[00:10:54] You know, these, like, obscure Welsh comedians. So, like, a lot of that. And then there was this one tape or slash CD that got played again and again and again. And it was, like, show tunes from, like, the 1980s. And it was, like, Cats. And this doesn't track with my dad. Like, anyone who, like, knows him is, like, really? But it was, like, Cats and Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and Evita and, like, musicals.

[00:11:18] But then the real music choices were, like, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, right? Like, that's kind of a, like, soundtrack of my childhood, which I'm a little late for. We've listened to, like, Jerry Rafferty and the Moody Blues. You know what I mean? They're, like, da-da-da-da-da-da. I think one of his favorite things to do is in that gulf—do you know the show called South Park? Yeah, yeah. So, it's based in Colorado. It's a real place.

[00:11:45] And we actually lived about 30 minutes from South Park, like, the edge of South Park. It's a huge geographic region. But it's this high alpine plain, and there's still buffalo up there. And it's all these big, long straight roads. Like, when you think American straight roads that just go forever, it's one of those framed by mountains. And he would put on the 1812 Overture, and he would put all the windows down on the gulf. We'd be going, like, 100 miles an hour, and he would be blasting the 1812 Overture.

[00:12:11] And his goal was always to have the cannons in that song go off as we passed the buffalo. He thought that was hilarious. Which, again, if you know my dad, like, it was always some sort of, like, kind of dickish joke that he was, like, trying to pull on somebody. What was he hoping to achieve? Some sort of Lion King-esque stampede? Get some movement. Yeah, he wanted a stampede. He was like, I'm going to make these buffalo. And we thought it was great, right?

[00:12:40] As, like, 14-year-old boys, we were like, hell yeah. Like, let's do this, Dad. You know, in hindsight, we're like, okay. But he thought it was hilarious. The headline doesn't read well, does it? I should try that next time I'm driving through South London. I doubt everyone will bat an oil in. It'll just be... Yeah, you'll just get drowned out. Some of a normal noise, yeah. Crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I must say, I had him more down as Simon and Garfunkel than Cats the Musical. Definitely. Yeah, he was eclectic.

[00:13:09] And definitely, like, Simon and Garfunkel and, like, Cat Stevens. Like, I love my dog by Cat Stevens. That song, like, plays on repeat in my head when I think of him. I think that's the first time anyone's had comedy as well playing in the car, actually. I think so. Which is surprising, really. I'm trying to think of some Welsh comedians, but I do remember Sean Hughes. I don't think he's with us anymore, but... I'm presuming Rod Gilbert is also, but... Yeah. Both names ring a bell, but I wouldn't pretend to know, you know.

[00:13:38] Yeah, a little bit more new school than Billy Conley, but still very funny. How about kind of other members of your family? Was your mum driving Volkswagens too, or was that kind of pressed upon her? Rudgingly. Oh, really? Yeah. My mum is, like... My parents are so interesting because my mum was the polar opposite of my father. Like, my father, very outgoing, very, like, what sort of trouble can I get into? What sort of mischief can I create?

[00:14:07] I will talk your ear off about nothing for two, three, four hours, right? And really obsessive, like, hyper-focused on, like, his... Again, we lived and breathed Volkswagens, right? My mum is much more, like, reserved and kind of refined and very, like, kind of quiet. She's super intelligent and she's lived the most fascinating life. Like, they met in Kathmandu, India. Okay. Like, they went on an overland trip and they've traveled the world together.

[00:14:36] Like, they have this long, long, long history together. But she was, like, very different to him. And, you know, like, again, I said we had a Jeep Cherokee. So that was a lot of the time my mum's daily driver. Or the golf she drove for sure. But, you know, his most recent project before his passing, that 65 beetle that he liked to call the laxative, she would not go near that. And I don't blame her.

[00:15:01] Like, again, he credits me in an article that you guys wrote of, like, not grabbing the O.T. bar at all the entire time we did this road trip across Utah, which is kind of him. But that thing was uncomfortable, loud, smelly. Like, it was fantastic. I would not trade that trip for the world. But you don't want to drive around in a souped-up 65 beetle in the heart of a Colorado winter when it's, like, 24 degrees Fahrenheit. That's, like, negative 7 Celsius.

[00:15:30] No thank you. So she always, she was always kind of along for the ride with the bugs, you know. Like, she loved my dad, and so they were there. But her stuff was a lot more reasonable. My brother really, like, in regards to, like, wrench heads, gear heads. Yeah, yeah. I'm yankifying it. My brother definitely carries the baton better than me. Like, I'm technically oriented. Like, I work with computers and stuff like that.

[00:15:57] My brother is a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic in the United States Army. Oh, wow. Like, he worked for a long time. He's gone beyond this now. But we worked for a long time in, like, aviation mechanics. You know, he's owned a lot of sports cars. Like, he loves buying cars. So, you know, if you want to do a part two, I'll get you in contact. But, yeah, my brother, Paul, he really, like, carries that baton. And he just got a Subaru WRX.

[00:16:24] So, like, that hot hatch love, like, kind of stuck there. Are there any cars, Josh? This might apply to your brother more than you. I'm not sure. But any cars that your father had that you kind of crave to have yourself one day? I mean, I can't and I doubt I will ever sell my wife on this. But, like, a safari window bus camper? Like, I've got a growing family. I guess it's going to be becoming three kids. Like, we've got another one on the way. So, maybe there's not enough space anymore.

[00:16:52] But, you know, we've, like, played with the idea of, like, a camper or a trailer. Practical. What about a bus? You know, I'm like, I would never really fly. It's not super practical. But I love the safari windows. The synchro stands out. Like, the double cab synchro. I like pickup trucks. And I like Vanagans. So, what's better than the two of those slapped together? And they're just so weird. But, like, financially, I think those things go, like, base $30,000 USD for, like, the shell of one.

[00:17:22] You know what I mean? And then, like, keeping them on the road is a lot of work. So, those are kind of, like, in the Volkswagen sphere of what I would like to have. You know, we had a yellow trekker or thing. I think they call it stateside. Yeah. And I remember that as well. I drove that for a few months at school. I think it was, like, on its way over to go to somebody else and was just sitting at the house. The trekkers are really cool, too. Just any of those. You know, maybe one day. Did your dad have a dream car, do you think?

[00:17:51] I mean, I think he owned his dream car. I do think that 65 bug that he slapped that Porsche engine in and, like, and did all that work, too. Like, I think that was his dream car. Like, he truly loved that vehicle. Yeah, yeah. I also think, and, you know, I'd be appreciated to be challenged on this. But I think car people, more often than not, their dream car is the car that they happen to be working on in front of them a lot of the time. You know, a lot of his, like, closest friends, like, would have a dream car.

[00:18:21] And then they would buy it and work through it and get it up and running and do, you know, whether it's, like, a little tinker project. Or they're going to do, like, a full refurb into, like, this, you know, dump hundreds of thousands of dollars into this beautiful rebuild. That becomes, like, the dream car. My dad was always, like, oh, finally got my dream car. And then he would move on to the next dream car.

[00:18:44] But it definitely, Beatles, you know, I think that was his first vehicle, like, was a 65 bug as well. Okay. And to, like, bookend his life with a 65 bug when he was a kid from his grandfather, you know, and then to end it with that 65 bug, like, that's kind of, there's a lot of symmetry to that. Definitely. Definitely. So the road trip you did, tell us a little bit more about that. Because we did an article about it, but that was some sort of road rally, wasn't it?

[00:19:15] And you were in the Beetle. Did he let you behind the wheel? You know, he didn't during the Silverthorne. Not that I think if I had asked, he would have been like, absolutely. So it was the Silverthorne rally, right? And it was, like, a classic car rally. But really, it's just a chance for enthusiasts to get on the road and drive kind of collectively. Honestly, there's a lot of structure of, like, there's a lead car and an end car, and they, like, keep an eye on, like, where folks are. And, like, if you have breakdown, you know you got backup. You know what I mean?

[00:19:43] That being said, like, still an adventure when we inevitably broke down in the middle of nowhere. But, yeah, like, the Silverthorne. And it was everything, you know. Camaros. Camaros. Like, all of this, like, American muscle Mustangs and things like that over to, like, these weird, like, Camrys and strange little, like, cars. But they were all classics, save for a few supercars that were along.

[00:20:08] There was a Ferrari, like, top-of-the-line Ferrari supercar of some kind that was on the road with us. And so we did this trip, and it started in Grand Junction, Colorado, looped into, like, southwest Utah, like, nearly Las Vegas, and then came back over to Colorado. So it's days of trips. And it's light. Like, the racing is, like, we have to obey speed limits. Like, you know, it's more of a pace car sort of thing.

[00:20:37] Like, you're trying to make it to the finish line and get bragging rights that your 60-year-old vehicle made it. And so with the bug, we took it out. And I remember, I felt honored to be asked, but I was definitely, like, the contingency plan. My dad has this friend of his who's, like, this best friend, Norm. And Norm, like, again, he's a Volkswagen owner. He's got a Vanagon or a bus that they, like, road tripped around the States in all the time together just to do it. Nice. And even when he was, like, sick in his, like, last years, he would do this.

[00:21:06] But Norm had respectfully declined because two days, two 10 to 12-hour days in that bug is, like, it's a lot. And I wanted to go along. I wanted the time with my dad. And I was actually, and then this is maybe, like, oversharing, but I was going through a divorce at the time. Okay. Just ending a marriage. And I was going through a huge transition of my life. And I was, like, reconnecting with my father. So, like, the trip had a lot of meaning to me.

[00:21:34] And I think to him, you know, like, the prognosis was getting worse with his cancer. Right? So, there was a lot of, like, change happening in our lives. And I had already met a new person who I am now married to and have kids with. And so, there was, like, all of this stuff happening. And we got in that bug. And we just spent two days kind of road tripping and shooting the shit. And to go back to your question of being behind the wheel, I, like, love maps.

[00:22:03] So, I, like, kind of gravitated towards navigation. Like, I have a map of whales, like, just off camera over here to the left. Like, I just, that's always been a thing. And, like, we grew up doing orienteering and things like that. So, I was, like, really excited to be, like, the map guy and the road trip guy. So, I was happy to sit shotgun and ride alongside him. And I'm kind of glad I did because, of course, the hydraulic clutch failed, like, eight hours into our second day.

[00:22:33] And I would hate to feel like I had contributed to that. And, you know, we limped another two hours basically just coasting and avoiding stop signs before it finally caught up to us in a T-junction in the middle of nowhere, Utah, somewhere southwest of Capitol Reef, which is, like, this national park. In the pouring rain, dad laying under the bug in an inch of water trying to get it to work. But because of the custom build, it wasn't a physical clutch.

[00:23:03] It was hydraulic. And it was completely custom. There was no way to fix it. Like, somebody brought over a 65-plug cable, but we couldn't install it because we didn't have the old physical clutch to hook up to. So, like, it kind of became this sort of, like, okay, we're dead in the water. So, this Mormon tow truck guy came and, like, hauled us to the end-day spot. And then the next day, he, like, agreed to drive us all the way back to Denver, Colorado,

[00:23:31] which was a 12-hour haul from where we were with the bug on the back of his tow truck. And so, when he got to Denver, this is how kind of country he was. He was so nervous about the highways and other people and the traffic. Like, this guy was like, I've never driven my tow truck in this big city like this. Like, it was the quintessential Western American sort of, like, fear and loathing Las Vegas-style road trip adventures that we got to participate on. I didn't drive.

[00:23:58] I drove it at, like, a few, like, car shows that we went to together. And it shook and it rattled and it bounced and it held the road like wildfire, only if it was going quickly. It was an interesting car. The faster you drove it, the better it stayed on the road. But if you were going slowly, those wheels, even though, like, you had gotten the bigger base wheels, they still kind of wanted to take you off the road. Like, there was just too much engine for the car itself to hold anything until it got going.

[00:24:27] But then what machine, what machine. I was happiest at, like, 105 miles an hour is, like, when it really, where it was glad to be. We've spoken about kind of being in the car and sort of having those moments before because you're both, like, sort of driver, passenger, facing forward. You're not sort of got that eye contact. And actually, that's quite a nice time for people to have those conversations, I guess, especially poignant for you because time is limited to a certain extent.

[00:24:54] So, I guess, yeah, you are kind of thinking, I want to get something out of this. I sort of spend that time, get a little bit of extra information. And, yeah. It really is, like, it's crazy to think. Like, I have other memories after that with him. But it's like an anchor memory. Like, it's a pivotal moment sitting in that car with him. You know, I have this mental image. And, like, I've captured photos of it, fortunately. But I have this mental image of we're in Moab, Utah.

[00:25:24] And there's these soaring, you know, those, like, quintessential American West images of those huge plateaus, like, raising in the blood red stone color and then the perfect blue sky behind it. And he's sitting at the wheel of the bug. And I'm in the passenger seat, like, next to him. And I, like, glance over. And there's just, like, this beautiful landscape behind him as he sits in his car as we, like, rattle down this road in the middle of nowhere. And, you know, it was desolate. Like, there was no one else out there. And it's just this, like, anchor moment.

[00:25:54] And like you said, like, you have the opportunity in a trip like that to have a four-hour conversation. And you have the opportunity to sit there in silence as well. And there's value in that. Like, I think people want to fill silence all too often. But sometimes, like, just being there together in that moment and experiencing that together, like, that's something that we forget nowadays. Because there's so much happening all the time. And to, like, disconnect with him in that way and just be there together.

[00:26:24] Like, it really, it sits. I'm so glad it happened, you know. So, I'm really glad that he asked me. Because it's, it's, I think I would have felt, I mean, obviously, like, his passing was world-shattering, right? Like, losing a parent, you don't know what that's like until it happens to you. And I'm preaching to the choir. But it would have been even harder. Because life is life. Like, we had grown apart. We had come back together. We had grown apart.

[00:26:53] And I think had I not had that opportunity, like, I wouldn't have had the time I wanted with him. But because of it, I feel like I did get it. Yeah, that's really good. That's really good. I think, kind of speaking from my experience, I know that, you see, while you've got those things maybe you want to ask, you're also respectful of the fact that you don't want to bring up their situation. They're, they're, they're kind of living their life. For you, John, I guess it was a little bit different because it's all very sudden and you weren't kind of around.

[00:27:21] But I guess for myself, there was a bit of a build-up for yourself, Josh. You kind of had 10 years of it or something like that. Your father was unwell. 20, believe it or not, 20 years of him being on life and death. Which is... It's incredible. Yeah, just absolutely madness. Yeah. So, yeah, it is interesting. And, yeah, I'm glad you did get to spend that time with him. And, yeah, he always liked to make light of his illness. You know, like that was part of his coping method. So, he liked to joke about it.

[00:27:51] He wrote a book. He wrote a book about it. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And it's a comedy book, a humor book before anything else. You know what I mean? Like it's a weird little narrative of his life that is kind of a little bit lewd and a little bit cheeky. And, you know, him to a T. But, yeah, like he always liked to joke about it. But for us, like, again, and I'd be curious about your guys' perspective. But, like, for me, like, we lived it, again, for 20 years.

[00:28:19] And there's a fatigue that sets in. What do you talk about after 20 years of a person being? Yeah. Yeah, I guess you have to just switch that off, don't you? And just take it as it comes. You've got the initial shock, I suppose, around some sort of diagnosis. And potentially at that age, yeah, whether or not you'd have taken it in. How old were you when you found out he was poorly? Teens, maybe? I think I was 14. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I guess it then just becomes something that dad's got. It hit.

[00:28:49] And it was interesting because he had cancer before, went into full remission, and then a different type of cancer came. You know what I mean? So it's like, oh, great. But the first cancer softened, prostate cancer the first time around, which even in the 2000s, like, you know, that had a pretty solid survival rate. But that softened the blow. But it was a wild experience the way they found out the second round that he had cancer because we were on vacation in Canada. And he had leg pain that they had diagnosed as sciatica.

[00:29:19] And he was walking up the stairs and slipped. He didn't fall. He just slipped and jarred his leg. And it turns out there was a cancerous tumor about two inches long in his hip. And when he jarred his leg, his hip exploded from the inside out. Oh, wow. Like, I was walking behind him, and I remember, like, he just started screaming. So, like, it hit hard. You know, and your life gets turned upside down. Like, we got moved to Seattle so he could get specialized treatment. He had, like, stem cell transplants.

[00:29:47] Not the fetal kind, just to make sure that that doesn't become, like, a politicized thing. But, like, different types of stem cell transplant. So he had some of those and all of that. And we got moved for that. So, like, you live in it. And when we were in Seattle, like, we were living in a place where kids who had cancer were going to school with us. So then, like, we lost friends we made to the disease, to cancer, like, at the age of 16.

[00:30:16] You know, we would come in and they were gone. And so you have this reconciling. And maybe, I don't know, now we're getting into, like, all kinds of weird philosophy. But, like, you learn to live with it and with those things and with those losses in a way that I wouldn't wish it on anybody. But you normalize it. Do you think having lost your dad has made you do stuff that maybe you wouldn't have done before? I think so.

[00:30:46] So, you know, the main drive, the main characteristic I got from my dad, and I don't think it was from him passing, but from the way he contributed in raising us is, like, a sense of wanderlust and adventure. Like, I'm happiest when I'm someplace I don't know. Okay. Right? Like, we were hikers and mountain climbers and rock climbers and we traveled the world, you know. Like, when I graduated college, my parents were like, hey, you should do what we did. So, I got on a plane and flew to Azerbaijan.

[00:31:13] And I got in an old Russian Lada Neva and road trip from Baku, Azerbaijan, across the Georgian border to Tbilisi and, like, stayed in youth hostels and, like, hung out with these people who I had met through school. But I didn't know very well. Like, you know, I met this gentleman named Mushvig, Mushvig Imam Verdiyev. Right? Like, the most Turkish ex-Soviet name you could possibly have.

[00:31:40] And, like, you know, I experienced hind helicopters flying overhead. And, like, if you talk to my dad or, like, read his book, like, his whole life, and my mom's as well, are stories like that. You know? My mom, I was floored to, like, be sitting on the deck with her one day. And something, some, sorry, I bring the energy down, some terrible terror attack had happened. And we were talking about it, and my mom said, yeah, I remember being in a terror attack. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? And I was, like, 26 years old.

[00:32:10] I was like, what? I had never heard this story. And this is classic my mom. She said, oh, yeah, I was in Barcelona when the train bombings happened. Like, I was around the corner when they went off. And so, like, you know, for those of you who are unfamiliar with history, there were these horrible train bombings in, like, the 80s and early 90s in Barcelona. And they were these terror attacks. And my mom had just experienced that because of the wanderlust. That was kind of the thing that connected the two of them, is they were just world travelers. They wanted to experience everything.

[00:32:40] And, you know, in my 20s, I think I lost some of that. And in my 30s, my dad helped rekindle that, like, with these road trips and things like that. And I will say that, like, I think his passing just reinforces that. Again, he flew to England and saw all of his family and mucked about, like, solo by himself, deep in the throes of passing from cancer, like, four months before he went. And that was just how he was.

[00:33:08] Like, he wasn't going to let a little terminal illness keep him from stomping around northern Wales in his welly boots and six inches of mud, you know, in a field with his sister. Like, that's how he was. Yeah, yeah. Fantastic. I think, yeah, I think we could talk for ages about him. And by the sound of things, your mom is equally as fascinating. That's not what the podcast is about at all. But if she's written a book, send us a link.

[00:33:39] But, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and great to hear more about your father. And, yeah, he was a great guy. He really was. Really nice guy. And, yeah, pleasure to have kind of met him and worked alongside him. Well, thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to talk about him. And, you know, I mean, again, he loved telling stories about himself. So I think he would be super chuffed at the idea that we're out here regaling and sharing a little bit of his insane life experience with folks. And, yeah, you should check out his book. I think it's called A Dirty Job.

[00:34:09] No, no, that's a different book. What did he? I didn't remember the name of it. I'll look it up and I'll send you guys the link. It's on the edge of my tongue. I've not read it. He's shown me them. And each chapter starts with a joke, doesn't it? And a little cartoon. Yeah, a little cartoon. Like, he had artists. The one that stands out to me is, like, a nurse stomping on his chest while she tries to pull a catheter line out of his, like, chest. Yeah, it's a wild read. It's an interesting thing. And, yeah, I think you'll be pleased to know you've got a lot of the mannerisms of your dad. Yeah, take that as a compliment.

[00:34:39] Oh, I appreciate it. I've heard that a lot. I look like him. I act like him. Yeah, I just have a Yankee accent. So, yeah, thank you very much, Josh. I really appreciate your time, especially because it's early over there. And, yeah, great stories. Thank you very much. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate you all. Do you need anything else from me? No, no, no. You can go back to bed. I've got to go to work. I've got to go to bed. Thank you very much, Josh. Have a great day. Thanks a lot. Cheers. A pleasure meeting you both. Bye. Cool. There you go. That was nice, wasn't it? Yeah.

[00:35:10] Obviously, you're familiar with Josh's dad. I'm not. But, yeah, no, he's clearly a really nice, interesting guy. Yeah, he was a real character. And, yeah, sort of a bit of backstory. For some reason, I was doing something with work and thought about him. And there was an obituary page for his dad, Richard. And I went on it. And I think that there was a comment from Josh on it saying it had been a year. And I was like, I'll message him on that day. So, yeah, at that point, I think I reached out to him on. It happened to be the anniversary. Right.

[00:35:39] And he was like, yeah, absolutely. I'll come and kind of have a chat about him. And I've never chatted to him before. But, yeah, like I say, he's got quite a lot of mannerisms with his father. And his dad was just, yeah, a brilliant storyteller. As you can tell, he'd done some wild things. Yeah, absolutely. Trying to create a stampede of buffalo. And I think, like my geography, especially for America's rubbish, but I think they lived pretty close to Pike's Peak. Right. He'd sort of take his beetle up there. Obviously not for the race, but he could kind of go for drives around there.

[00:36:08] And, yeah, he had this blue beetle relaxative, which was just meant to about 200 horsepower. And, yeah, the idea was that it created bodily functions. Yeah. Quite imagine, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I really enjoyed that. Yeah, no, it was really nice. And, yeah, hopefully Josh got something out of it as well, really, having a good old sort of reminisce. Obviously it's still fresh in the memory, isn't it? Because it's not long past.

[00:36:36] But, yeah, hopefully a good experience for him. I think, yeah, we've done a lot of these now. And I don't know whether it's quite nice is the wrong phrase. But when there has been some grief and people have an opportunity to talk about it, but in a positive light, it's not just a kind of mourning the fact that they've gone back. Actually, we just spent half an hour or so sort of celebrating the fact that he was here and sort of going through some of those stories. And, yeah, obviously what Josh and his family lived with was 20 years of, I guess, uncertainty,

[00:37:07] which is, yeah, just sounds kind of crazy. Obviously, we'd both give sort of anything to have some more time with our loved ones. But 20 years of sort of that unknowing, especially when kind of cancer's involved, you're like, that's not just, yeah, we're all dying because we are all dying. But, yeah, when something kind of serious like that's hanging around, that must have been, yeah, very tricky to live with. Yeah. Yeah, I think something like that, it's kind of like, you know, comparing it to a football match, it's like the board going up really, isn't it?

[00:37:36] And saying there's X amount of minutes left. Whereas for most people that are just living, it's just, it's not there, is it? In existence, you don't know how long you've got. So, yeah. Yeah, lovely that he did that road trip with him. And I guess the message is to those people out there who have got parents still around, is, yeah, don't take that for granted. Kind of do that road trip, go and visit them, give them a call. Yeah. All of those sort of things. Yeah, you might not always see eye to eye, but, yeah,

[00:38:04] kind of find out what you can about your folks because it's so much easier when they're there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Cool. Okay. Thank you very much, John. Thanks, Andy. Yeah, we'll wrap this one up and roll the credits. Thank you for listening to My Dance Cart. I hope you enjoyed the show. Please support us. Buy us a copy and subscribe. And tell all your friends.