Josh’s 19th birthday was yesterday; I’m amazed at how quickly that much time has gone by. 19 years constitutes a book’s worth of material, but I don’t have that much time. As I think back over the years, though, certain images immediately pop into my head:
- His second birthday, where we videotaped him in the bathtub, excitedly telling Debbie “I blow out two candles, Debbie!” She corrects him: “Mommy”, and he replies “I blow out two candles, mommy!” He’s standing up in the tub, holding up two soapy little fingers and grinning widely.
- A spring day when we lived at our house on Tag Place (also in Glen Allen): he’s running across one of the neighbors’ yards, holding his right arm up with his left as he runs. He’s maybe six, or seven, and I can see from a distance of a yard-and-a-half that there’s blood running down his arm. He had fallen while skateboarding or biking, and cut his arm. He wasn’t hurt very badly, but the image of your son calling out to you with blood running down his arm sticks in your head.
- 2003, at the Josh Weaver Memorial Meet on the Hill (a swimming competition): This is a big invitational meet, and it’s in a long course pool, so he’s a little nervous about it. They also have starting blocks that can detect if you leave too soon, which add an unnerving element. Josh responds by swimming his fastest time in the 50 Free, just 1/100 of a second away from a AAA time (USA Swimming’s scale, divided by age group, for measuring accomplishment – it runs from C to AAAA).
- July 7, 2008: My phone rings at 1:15 AM, and it’s Josh. In a shaking voice, he tells me he’s been in an accident, and that his car (a nice red Honda Civic that he had recently turbocharged) is totaled. I ask him if he’s okay, and he says yes, but it’s clear he is shaken up. It turns out that it was Josh’s fault, and the 1992 Toyota Corolla that he hit was totaled too. The other driver was a teenager too, so I’m sure his parents were as frightened to get that call as we were. Thankfully, neither of them was hurt. The intersection where it happened (Robious Rd. and Huguenot Rd. in Chesterfield) apparently has a reputation for confusing drivers: the judge in the case reduced his fine by half because she understood why it happened. A small consolation, but acknowledgement that Josh wasn’t being totally irresponsible by driving through a red light.
In one of the boxes at FedEx Field
There’s lots of other stuff, big and small, that runs through my head when I think about my son. He is a fine young man: he’s responsible, smart and industrious, earns (most of) his own money, is quick to help a friend (or his father) with a mechanical repair or with his vast repository of knowledge about cameras, photography, or car audio equipment. I’m impressed by his entrepreneurial leanings: he can figure out how to make money when he needs to, and in a lot of different ways. When it comes to automobiles, he’s a serial experimenter – he’s on his fifth vehicle (one was jettisoned as a result of the accident described above): Chevy S10, Honda Civic, Jeep Wrangler, Honda Accord, and most recently, a Jeep Cherokee. These vehicles have variously been lifted, lowered, turbocharged, and outfitted with bigger wheels, larger tires, and booming stereo setups.
He’s attending VCU now, in the School of Engineering (perhaps he’ll get further along that path than his old man did) – he’s trying to decide between Mechanical Engineering and a Computer Science-related discipline. I think he’ll do fine, whatever he chooses. Happy Birthday, son.
