Just like my own father taught me, I instilled in my older son, Max, a healthy mix of caution and outright paranoia behind the wheel. We’d be cruising along the interstate, and if the speedometer dared to nudge past the legal limit, my dad’s familiar warnings would instinctively tumble from my lips.
“Hey, pal,” I’d often prompt him, a subtle hint in my voice, “Care to tell me how fast you’re going?”
But this past summer, those carefully taught lessons were about to be dramatically unlearned. I was gripping the wheel of a sleek black BMW, my son Max grinning beside me as the digital display climbed rapidly, eventually settling on a breathtaking 125 miles per hour.
“Nice!” he cheered, completely absorbed in the moment.
Max, then 18 and fresh off his freshman year of college, had just landed in Berlin for a summer visit. His overnight flight from JFK had been plagued by storms, leaving him exhausted, and me feeling quite deflated by the travel chaos.
Father’s Day had come and gone without us, a common casualty of kids growing up and, in our case, living on separate continents. To make up for it, my wife had gifted us tickets to catch our all-time favorite band, Wilco, at a truly rare German performance.
The only catch? As Max buckled into the passenger seat, Wilco was slated to begin their set in Dortmund, clear across the country, in less than three hours. Google Maps, ever the realist, predicted a five-hour drive.
We faced a choice: wave goodbye to the concert or, just for one day, toss aside years of paternal driving wisdom and put our faith in the legendary Autobahn.
Everyone talks about Germany’s highways, the fabled Autobahn, where sections famously have no speed limits. In my initial months in Berlin, I hadn’t truly experienced it; my drives were typically sedate commutes to the airport, interviews, or the occasional IKEA run.
Despite holding a German driver’s license, my ingrained fear of excessive speed remained. My father’s voice still echoed in my head, a constant whisper of ‘They’re out to get you’ whenever another car appeared on the horizon.
I even recalled a cross-country trip from my own college days, not much older than Max, when my refusal to push past 70 mph on a Texas freeway led my friends to unceremoniously take the keys from my hand.
But this was different. This was an emergency. On the Autobahn, I made a pact with myself: I would drive as fast as the traffic, safety protocols, and the remarkable precision of German engineering would permit.
Beyond its engineering marvels, the Autobahn holds deep psychological significance for many Germans and is currently at the heart of a fierce political debate. With an enormous 500 billion euros (almost $600 billion) earmarked for new infrastructure, officials are locked in arguments over funding for road repairs and expansion, all while the nation simultaneously needs to revitalize its once-revered rail network. (We’d already looked into trains to Dortmund; none could get us there before the show started.)
Out on the open road, German drivers exuded a confident expertise, their Volkswagens and Porsches effortlessly zipping past in the left lane, even as my speedometer crept well past 100 mph.
Curiously, the speedometer displaying kilometers per hour actually made things easier. The larger numbers felt abstract, somehow less intimidating than their miles-per-hour counterparts.
Having Max by my side, expertly handling the music, made the journey even better. He filled me in on all the nuanced college tales that simply don’t make it into a quick phone call.
We zoomed past countless windmills, practiced our German phrases, and watched the estimated arrival time on Google Maps steadily tick down. A sliver of hope emerged: we might actually make it for Wilco’s second set.
Then, at the perfect moment, we decided to call my own father.
“Dad, we just hit 200 kilometers an hour!” I exclaimed, a triumphant grin on my face. “That’s 125 miles per hour!”
To his absolute credit, my father simply burst out laughing.
Image: A shot of the BMW’s dashboard, showing the speedometer needle resting at an exhilarating 201 kilometers per hour. The photo captures the very moment Mr. Tankersley, usually a cautious driver, pushed the limits in their race against time to reach the Wilco concert.
Against all odds, we arrived in Dortmund in a little over three hours and twenty minutes, finding parking just a block from the intimate outdoor venue. We’d only missed a mere half-dozen songs. High-fives and back-pats were exchanged, a testament to our improbable victory.
Inside, Max belted out every lyric alongside Jeff Tweedy and the band. “I can’t believe we made it,” we murmured to each other throughout the night. At one point, he turned to me, a wide smile spreading across his face, and simply said, “This is awesome.”
Wilco holds a special place in our shared history, starting with Max’s very first rock concert at the Anthem in Washington. We’d since seen them perform late into the night at Wolf Trap in Virginia, with his stepmother and younger sister joining in. Max, ever the meticulous critic, loves to rank everything from concerts to albums. We weren’t sure where this particular show would land on his list, but we both agreed: it was, without a doubt, the hardest we’d ever hustled to experience live.
Our reward? The most incredible, face-melting rendition of one of our all-time favorite Wilco songs, complete with an extended guitar solo that left us speechless.
Its name, fittingly, is “Impossible Germany.”
Image: An energetic photo of Wilco performing live on stage in Dortmund, bathed in concert lights, with the audience visible. This was the concert that Mr. Tankersley and his son literally raced across Germany to see, an unforgettable experience they both agreed they’d never worked harder for.
When the final notes faded around 10 p.m., we grabbed a quick dinner before hitting the road once more. The return journey eastward was far more leisurely, and as the first light of dawn painted the sky near Berlin, I was overcome with profound gratitude.
College is a chapter of immense growth and self-discovery for students. But for a parent, it can also bring a quiet apprehension: the fear that the shared adventures, the joint explorations of new experiences, might dwindle.
That epic Autobahn dash, however, had decisively sped those fears right out of my mind.
The rest of our summer together flew by just as quickly as a Porsche in the Autobahn’s fast lane. In early September, our entire family piled into the car to take Max back to the airport for his return to college. We left with plenty of time, and this time, I drove well below the speed limit.
Because some journeys, you simply never want to end.