Alana was embarrassed to drive Mom’s Mercedes (“the ostentatious behemoth”) so she wanted to learn to drive my stick-shift Volvo.

Anyone who’s taught a person how to drive a stick shift realizes that they have forgotten how complex it is. Learning the shift pattern and the use of two feet is difficult enough. Developing the feel for the clutch and the gas takes a whole lot of patience on the part of the student and the teacher. But after you’ve driven the stick for a few months, it’s completely unconscious — thankfully.

Alana did not appreciate that I wanted to wear my bicycle helmet.

Early in learning process, we were leaving a parking lot and encountered a car waiting to cross in front of us. Alana stopped, then the stopped car motioned her to go ahead. She killed the engine. She motioned for the other car to go ahead. They killed their engine. Repeat, repeat. Finally, I looked into the other car and saw it was another dad teaching his daughter to drive a stick.

Both daughters were beet red and both dads were just cracking up.

Posted by Bob Devich

You know Alana was a vegetarian, but you may not know she took up this practice in middle school. She was such an animal lover that she did not want to eat any part of any animal. “I don’t eat anything that had a mother,” she said. Nor did she allow anything with leather, so any number of gifts went back to well-intentioned Aunties and Grandmothers.

One year she was home on break from college and the family was invited to a holiday dinner at a close friend’s house. They cooked a special dish for Alana — turkey chili. I guess to some people “vegetarian” means “no beef”. Not to Muffy.

When she was in high school, she got a job waitressing at a cafe Char and I frequented, and we knew the owners pretty well.

After a few weeks, the owners shared with us that when people ordered sausage or bacon with their meal, Alana would mutter “murderer” loud enough for them to hear.

Funny, this didn’t get her fired, nor did it impact her tips. Probably because of the smile she served to each customer.

Doesn’t that sound like Alana?

Posted by Bob Devich

When she was in elementary school, Alana was resisting studying. She asked me why we have to study, why we have to learn things. She was very worked up, almost in tears.

I patiently explained that we need knowledge in order to get along in life. There are things we need to know in order to do the things we want to do. Then she came up with a question I couldn’t answer.

“Dad, why can’t we be BORN with knowledge?”

Posted by Bob Devich

Alana’s comic sense showed up early in her life.

She was in middle school, and we were in a grocery store; somebody named Lois was paged. She apparently thought the name was Blois. Where did she go with this?

“So Blowus, how was your date with the basketball team?”

Posted by Bob Devich