I loved to wash the car. I don’t know why, maybe my dad conditioned me to think that the job was fun. Here’s one of my earliest memories of washing the Pontiac:

    OK, so that was a picture taken at the house where we built the big snowman. I was “helping” dad wash the car and mom came out and took a picture. As you can tell by the missing front teeth, I was very young. This was before kindergarten.
    Anyway, several years later, when my bro was old enough to walk on his own two feet and I was an independent man with a life of my own, we decided to go wash the car ourselves. My parents didn’t know this was going on. I suspect dad was watching the baseball game on TV and mom was busy in the kitchen or sewing something.
    We gathered up all the “equipment” we were going to need to wash the car. The bucket was easy as well as the dish soap. As far as sponges, well, we only had one at the time. So I improvised. This is so jaw-dropping that it really requires a photo:

    Yes, that’s me with the sponge mop standing on the hood of the very same Pontiac getting it nice and clean. My brother was working on the bumper with the sponge.
    My mom discovered us first. She was suspicious because it became unusually quiet inside the house. So she knew we were up to something.      When she came outside she immediately started laughing. Then she called dad to the scene. He almost freaked out, except he was also laughing at the ludicrous nature of what was going on. Then he seized the mop and told me that it would scratch the car. I think he went inside and found me a sponge so I could wash the car without using the mop.
    The crazy thing I remember is that he didn’t care that I walked on the hood. Just to be careful getting down. That was back in the day when the hood of a car was made of thick steel and weight as much as today’s cars.
    I’m sure this story made a hundred guy cringe. Especially knowing what a classic car that is if it still existed in the condition that it was back then. That was one of dad’s first new cars. After that car we switched to a station wagon or two for some time.
    I still remember how much easier it was to wash the care with the sponge mop. It was able to get up the windshield and onto the roof without me climbing up that high. Though, I doubt if I would try that method with my truck.