It was a rare occasion. Nine hours alone with my son as we drove my pickup carrying his grandmother's piano to Chicago where he and his family lived at the time.

There was a strong feeling of deja vu, a pervasive memory of a trip I took with my father about 80years ago.

Dad was driving our Thornhill wagon twenty miles to Cookeville to buy the lumber for our new house. I was accompanying him to assist if needed. Just we two men. Well, hardly. Just father and son driving along U. S. 70 to the lumber yard.

I had never been to Cookeville. Our family had returned to Tennessee the year before after four years in Arkansas. We were living with my mother's parents, an arrangement that proved unsatisfactory to my mother who wanted to officiate in her kitchen.

Dad was planning to build a new four-room frame house on my grandparents' farm just one-half mile from their house. He had spent long months in Detroit working at one dollar per hour as a carpenter. Now he had the money to build his own house. Our house.

About 12 miles into our journey, Dad noticed an uneven movement of the right front wagon wheel. He drove the wagon to the shoulder of the highway and climbed down to examine it. The axle nut was gone.

“It must have dropped off in the last few minutes,” Dad said. “I'll go look for it. You stay with the wagon and mules.”

The delay in our trip was offset by my new responsibility. Pretty heady stuff for a nine-year-old, in charge of the wagon all by himself. Surely, few boys so young had suddenly inherited such important roles.

The thrill of self-importance yielded to slight concern as the minutes stretched into an hour and Dad had not returned. Time dragged on, and no Dad. I don't remember panic or fright. Just worry about Dad.

At last, I saw him coming.

“I couldn't find the nut,” he said. “But I found an old wagon and the man told me to help myself. So I have this nut.”

Dad righted the wheel and began to turn the nut. A puzzled look came over his face. The threads of a Thornhill axle were different. The nut was just a bit too large.

Dad could fix things. He took binder twine, wound it around the axle, and twisted the nut. It was tight. We resumed our trip, delayed by about three hours and knowing we would not be home before dark.

After about two miles, the wheel wobbled again. Dad surveyed the problem area and rewound the axle. Now he knew we would never make it. “We'll go back and spend the night with Grandma,” he said. “I'll figure this thing out and we'll go on to Cookeville tomorrow.”

Grandma was Dad's mother who lived about eight miles from Cookeville and close to U. S. 70.

At this point, my memory fails me. I don't recall how he solved the problem, or how we got word to Mama that we would not be home. I don't remember if I missed school to go with Dad. I remember little of the rest of the trip.

What I remember is the closeness I felt for this loving, resourceful man. The nostalgia I experienced next day in school. A longing to spend more time with Dad. Just the two of us. Neither of my two younger brothers with us. Only father and son.

So, 60 years later, again I was to experience the poignant father-son experience. But this time I was the father. The two of us for nine hours as we drove along Interstate 65.

There was no wobbly wheel this trip. Just the rare experience of father and son alone. No one else. A long conversation. No lack for words.

There was one funny instance. We ate a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Lebanon. Indiana, that is. We arrived after the regular noon hour, and the pile of fried chicken was depleted. Both of us wanted white meat.

The serving lady found one chicken breast. She looked and looked for another, finally telling us: “I would have sworn I had two breasts.”

We let it pass. Now we like to recall and laugh at the innocent statement.

I reflect on the deja vu. The coincidence of emotions. The joy of being one-on-one with a family member. And the renewed father-son closeness that lingered long after the trip.

On two occasions.