“Midnight Run” by Kevin Honeycutt and Terri Peckham
Midnight Run by Kevin Honeycutt and Terri Peckham.
It’s my Dad’s birthday, and I’ve been feeling sentimental about it for so many reasons. My first child, my son, Alex Honeycutt, was born just 4 days ago - and it’s made me reflect on my own childhood.
I could not have been luckier to have Kevin Honeycutt as a Dad. My Dad grew up in poverty and talks about the difficulties of those experiences in his book, Midnight Run, which he co-authored with Terri Peckham. Midnight Run is a reference to being told by his own father that “We need to pack up and leave home tonight. We’re going on a midnight run. Pack what you can in a single bag and we are leaving the state tonight.”
As horrifying as this was, it was a line that was a commonality through my father’s childhood. My Dad went to 20 schools through the U.S., but he never stopped dreaming. He talked about how he carried his dreams with him in his midnight runs - and this shaped the father he was to me.
Growing up, I could not have asked for a better role model as to what it meant to be a father. Even in hard times, my Dad would always find a reason to dream, or find a way to be happy in the smallest of things. Whether that meant after a hard week taking a weekend road trip with my Mom and I where we took turns choosing ways to go after finding forks in the road. We’d usually end up in a little town in KS and my parents would let me find one special thing to buy from the town’s antique store. No matter what was going on in life or the world, I was never afraid when I was around my Dad. I can only hope to inspire the same faith now that I am a father to my son, Alex, and it fills me with joy to be able to see the incredible grandpa my Dad will now be for my son.
I took a picture of my Dad’s book with wild sunflowers. It made me happy to come to CO and see that they had their own kind of sunflower. They remind me of my home in KS, but wild sunflowers also remind me of my Dad. Wild sunflowers are considered weeds by some in CO, but they never stop looking beautiful, no matter where they grow.
Happy birthday, Dad.