Sometimes, when I'm trying to back into a parking space with difficulty (which is, incidentally, the only way I can back into a parking space), I like to comfort myself with the thought that my driving lessons never extended to learning how to back up. I guess the instructor had such a chore teaching me how to go forward, he ran out of time before he got to the backing up lesson.
Of course, how I came to have a driving instructor in the first place is one of those family tales that's become folklore. It all started with my mother's happy anticipation of the time when I could obtain my driver's license.
You see, my mother never learned to drive and I think she began looking forward to my sixteenth birthday, and the license that would come with it, on the day I was born (thereby giving her, not only an available means of transportation, but one which was under her direct authority :-). Suffice it to say, when the day was in sight, she was even happier about it than I was. A few weeks beforehand, she'd broken open all the piggy banks and managed to find enough money to purchase a used car for "us" (it was, in fact, very, very used, but it looked like a dream car to me, and I promptly named it "Nellie," though I can't think why). My father wasn't nearly as enthralled with the idea of my learning to drive, but it was hard to contain my mom's tidal wave of enthusiasm.
Finally, the day of the first driving lesson arrived. I should've anticipated there might be a problem. My father had attempted to teach my mother to drive when they were first married. It didn't go well. He accused her of almost killing them both by plowing headlong into a moving train and refused to ever let her behind the wheel again.
I made a mental note to avoid train tracks and we got into the car, which was parked on the street in front of the house. With me at the wheel and my father in the front passenger seat, we started on our big adventure. We didn't get far.
The sudden jolt catapulted us both forward and, unfortunately, sent the lit end of my father's cigarette directly into his forehead with great force, nearly catching his hair on fire. Much cussing ensued.
Between the aforementioned expletives-deleted, I was able to gather that the "STOP!!!" was because he thought I was about to hit a neighbor's trash can (which was actually yards away and not even in my line of movement). Somewhere between the car and the house, he decided that I wasn't quite mature enough to take driving lessons. My mother and I were of the opinion that it was more likely that he wasn't quite mature enough to teach me, but, discretion being the better part of valor, we both thought it best not to say so at the time.
After his burn was cleaned and medicated, it was clear that he was in no mood to continue with the lesson. My mother suspected---and probably rightly so---that this was simply an attempt at postponing the inevitable......me, with wheels. (After all, I was only 5 years old in my father's mind, and the dangers of a 5-year-old cut loose on her own with wheels can be an uncomfortable thing to contemplate.)
When he found out, my father was not a happy camper. But, surprisingly, he didn't object. (He did, however, for the rest of his life, whenever he was riding and I was driving, hold onto the dashboard with both hands and keep his foot slammed on the imaginary brake at all times.)
I looked for and found Victor Manning online.....they're still in business in New Orleans. Unfortunately, the man who gave me instructions didn't last as long as the company. He quit the day after he finished my lessons. I didn't take it personally, I'm sure he had already planned on a career change anyway. . . . . .don't you think?
Nancy
-- Claude Pepper
I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.
-- Stephen Wright
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
-- Marcel Proust
Take a Driving Test Oops, I didn't do well, guess my father was right, after all!!
"Model T Road Trip"
"Grandma Knapp's '37 Road Trip"
Car Talk.....my favorite radio show!
Women at the Wheel
Road Trip Memories
101 Car Games for the Kids
Journal Index The Past Whispers Home My G-Grandfather's Attic Home E-Mail