Ready, Set, Go: John Welsh in the Parking Lot

Tim Welsh has a lot of fond memories of his dad, John Welsh. One of them always started the same way. When they were going to the grocery stores, they would always have races to see who could get back to the car first. Once they paid for the groceries or got something, they would say, “Ready? Set? Go!” Whoever ran back and touched the car first would be the winner. Tim remembers it as kind of crazy that they would run through parking lots, but it was a different time back then. John sometimes let Tim win. Tim would give it everything that he had. Winning or losing did not change the point of it. It was just fun. On most days John was serious. The grocery-store races were an opportunity for him to be more childlike. John went through a lot as a child and had a kind of rough upbringing. He didn’t have a dad. He was raised by his grandmother, and there was a lot of abuse in his home; he just didn’t get treated properly. To see him free himself a little bit in that way was nice to see. Tim did not focus on the difficult times. John was his dad. Tim didn’t really think about him as a child until he got older in life. What stayed with him was that it was nice to be able to relate to him and to see him be goofy once in a while. Tim cannot think of one specific goofy moment beyond that feeling, but he does remember a phrase John used to say: “I buy you fly.” It meant John would pay for them to go to the ice cream store to get ice cream as long as they got him a black and white milkshake. He just liked ice cream. Those are the scenes Tim supplied: races after groceries, a father who was serious most days and childlike in a parking lot, a childhood John had not been treated properly in, and ice cream on the condition of a black and white milkshake. What John meant in those memories is what Tim named—fond memories, fun, a chance to relate, and the niceness of seeing him free himself a little bit.