The Inside Curve

Picture this: an 8-hour car ride in a late 80's station wagon with an 80-year-old grandpa who would constantly remind me:  "Take the inside curve!"  "Why the inside curve?" I said knowingly.  I just wanted to hear is reasoning.  Sometimes it was funny.  "You'll save miles on your car - racers do it all the time!"  Much of this road trip was grandpa letting out an "Ahem!" followed by grandma's "RAAALPH, you're teaching him to drive like a maniac, make him SLOW DOWN!!!"  And my mother?  Well...I'll just say this: like mother like daughter.  This was Julius Raphael Landini - "Ralph" as family and friends called him. He was full of advice for the ways of the road:  "You don't need to fill up now! You'll just be hauling gas!" (It makes sense, actually!)   "Don't stop at that station - the tanker's refilling it! You'll be pumping dirty gas!"  Whether that last one was true,...