You, Me, My Dad & Your Dad All Love Neil Young

Nick Garis puts "Rust Never Sleeps" into perspective.

We just threw a surprise party for Papa Garis’s 24th birthday, part 46. I'm not emotionally ready for Nick to be “70,” no one is. It’s inappropriately old for my renegade father, a man who still lives behind sunglasses and boasts the emotional range of a shark. Yet he was overjoyed to be surrounded and celebrated by friends—in the haze of it I remember Tommy Mathis and the Jachcinski brothers chanting “R-N-S! R-N-S!” at the kitchen table. 

RNS. Rust Never Sleeps.

I have a clear vision of who Nick was when he was “young.” Big disdain for authority—he was fired from his first teaching job for publishing an underground zine (that, and the Monsignor didn’t *love* that kids were carving “Garis is God” in the desks). He spent nights getting high at concerts or getting high watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show. He left his Christmas decorations up until April as an antidote for seasonal depression. Life could get lonely, almost unbearably, but it was lived with an adamant sense of independence and individuality.

I understand who this person is.

But then there’s “RNS.” A consummate wordsmith, my father has perma-branded “RNS” in the signature of every card or correspondence. And it’s a goddamn enigma to me.