Anyone who knows Andy knows he a man of few words! Because of his seemingly quiet nature, I’m asked a variety of questions relating to his memory and what he knows. While I know he has a very good memory by his actions and reactions it is harder for me to know exactly what he knows. But he has not stopped trying to show me! (The tenacity of the Andy’s of the world is highly under acknowledged!)
I’ve known he has a good memory since he was about two. My Grandpa was in the hospital for about a week and Andy and I visited him a couple times. For the next two years every time we would pass the hospital, Andy would point at it and I knew he was remembering visiting Gramps even though we had visited Gramps at his home after that hospital stay. Another example that is kinda a guess, I believe he choose the first Andy’s Choice Award semi because it reminded him of the truck he had his first ride in when he was 4, about 25 years earlier! (More on that in a different story to come)
As for what he knows, one has to be observant of his words, facial expression and his gestures. Andy usually has books with him or very close by and with me he communicates by finding pictures in his books then asking “please”. He finds pictures of tacos or Taco Bell, or McDonalds signs to ask to go there. He uses pictures of pizza for that request and he flips thru the pages of the Big Rigs Making a Difference coloring books to the picture of Charlies County Corner to ask to go there. Expanding his experiences has changed the requests. He used to find pictures of trucks and ask to go find rigs of any make and model. Now because the Michigan Kenworth staff flooded him with a variety of literature and products containing their logo for over 20 years, that changed the find-any-truck request to lets go find a Kenworth! After attending the Onaway Inaugural Great Lakes Big Rig Challenge his request got more specific, he now wants to see trucks rolling coal! The fact he knows what picture is in which book is pretty amazing, you would understand if you saw his stash of books! I can understand those communications but apparently I don’t have the skills for some of his other communications as I found out in the last couple weeks.
Recently, he has shown me that the right tools and the right people close by are key to validate his knowledge. A couple months ago he received a book featuring the history of International for the years 1915-2002. Andy loves busses as much as he loves trucks and had been drawing
circles around busses in the pages from the 80’s on, the years he rode school busses so we know he recognized those busses vs the earlier years. Andy’s kept pointing to one 1986 bus and wanting his uncle,( who, at that moment, was in a conversation with someone else) to look at it. Finally I told Andy I did not know if his uncle’s bus was a 1986 and to wait. His uncle stopped, turned and looked at Andy and confirmed his bus is a 1986! With all the busses in that book Andy found his uncles!! Impressive, I think! I don’t know how many models of busses International has produced between 1915 and 2002, it looks to be a lot! I know I could not have verified that knowledge Andy has because my knowledge of any type of vehicle is basically they come in colors and they are big or small!
A couple weeks later we visited a couple semi related businesses. At the first, Diesel Freak staff took Andy out back to look at trucks while I was taking care of business inside. They came in and he was gifted a Truck Paper, which is a black and white sales publication featuring semis and other related equipment. Once we were in the car for the quick drive across the parking lot to Michigan Kenworth, he hastily scanned every page as he often does when he gets these types of publication. With his Truck Paper in tow, we walked across the Kenworth parking lot and he pointed to his beloved Kenworth logo on each rig we passed. As I stated the reason for the visit and chatted about the recent truck show Andy sat quietly scanning his book. Soon, the Kenworth staff noticed Andy pointing to a truck and asked me if it was a certain Kenworth model, I confirmed it was and I believe that model was by the door as we walked in. We went on with our conversation when Andy interrupted us by insisting we look at another picture. I did not know what he was trying to communicate and finally asked if he had seen a truck like that outside? At that point the Kenworth staff got a look at the picture Andy was adamantly showing us and said “Diesel Freak has a truck exactly like that!” In the five minutes or less that Andy had that book not only had he scanned it but he found trucks that he had seen in the last ten minutes. He needed that Kenworth staff who knew those rigs to interpret what Andy was telling us!
Obviously Andy is still teaching me! I now know why he looks at those truck publication with such a fervor in the first few minutes, but he also needs people who know big rigs to help out once in a while.
More impressive, however, is Andy knows his trucks and this all validates his choices for the Andy’s Choice Award!
Passion Prevails!
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