Wednesday, July 08, 2009

secret 8 - oooh, i'm driving my life away


i had some really weird thoughts as a kid. like that eventually, you wouldn't need to pay attention to those pavement markings which signified a no passing zone, because you would get so experienced at driving that you would just know when someone was coming. luckily, by the time i turned 14 and got my license, that wacky thought had gone.

yup, you read that correctly. i grew up in a place where you get to drive, fair and square, lawfully and legally, at age 14 (brief pause here for anyone with a 14-year-old to come to since they have undoubtedly fainted). it was, i'll grant you, a learner's permit. which meant that you could drive between sunup and sundown, but that if you drove "after hours," you needed an adult in the car. and by an adult, i think they meant parent, as i don't recall any of us trying to hang out with 18-year-olds after dark. at least not for the purpose of driving.

but i digress.

when i turned 16, the license converted to a regular driver's license, where i could drive (and did) at all hours of the day or night. because a) there was nothing to run into out there on the prairies and b) there was nothing better to do out there on the prairies. it could get a little dull out there on the prairies. contrary to the picture presented by laura ingalls wilder and that show where michael landon played her dad.

before you get your license, you have to attend driver's ed classes. our driver's ed classes were taught by the elementary school principal whose name i don't recall and wouldn't want to use here anyway, but i can picture him and his rather creepy, freakishly heavy black mustache to this day. during the driving part of the classes, i was paired with a girl named snow. snow, as you might imagine, had suffered some brain damage from all of the dope clearly smoked by her mother during pregnancy--because you'd have to be high to name your kid snow, right? she had a sister named spring and a brother named rusty or rock or something like that. very naturey that family.

anyway.

snow had clearly not been paying attention during the classes, so when we went for the driving bit of the course, mr. mustache had to save us from certain death on hairpin gravel road curves more than once with the little brake that had been installed on the passenger side of the car. his car surely forever had my fingernail marks embedded in that little handle on the door, where i clutched it in fear for my life while snow drove.

since i had been practicing driving already for ages in my dad's old blue chevette (later totaled by my sister at the age of 12), i passed the driving part of driver's ed with flying colors. and then it was time to take my driver's test.

the driver's test people came to town once or twice a month and camped out at the city office. you went in and took a written test (which a blindfolded monkey could pass) and then, if you were new, you had to go out for a little drive with the examiner--BYOV--bring your own vehicle. i had been saddled with lurch, our elderly station wagon--picture the one from that chevy chase vacation movie--only dark blue with faux wood side panels, not green like the one in the movie.

now this car had been dubbed lurch because of its tendency to die on you whenever you slowed down (and definitely when you stopped, like at a stop sign). it would then lurch to a stop. and you would spend the next five minutes turning the key, furiously pumping the gas pedal and begging it out loud to start.

naturally, this happened to me at a four-way stop right in front of my grandma's house right by the school. lurch died and i  pumped the gas pedal and begged it to start again. which it only did after about 38 tries by which time the sweat was pouring off of me from both nervousness and the sheer exertion of getting the damn thing started again. the examiner, not even remotely able trying to stifle her laughter, put me through a few more paces and then directed me back to the city office, saying as we pulled up there and she wiped the tears of laughter that were streaming down her face that i had passed the test and that if that was the car i was going to have to drive, i DESERVED that driver's license.

i think i should probably take a page from spudballoo and get a formal grudge book and scrawl my parents' names there for making me take lurch to my driver's test. i guess they wanted me to really earn it. and i did and i've been driving ever since.

17 comments:

Optimistic Pessimist said...

I've heard about 14 year olds being able to get their permits, but I thought it was a myth.

Do you think lurch knew you disliked him and tried to sabatoge your BYOV driving test?

Just Jules said...

at least they didn't make you take your test in a stick shift - required by my father.

Still nothing to do on the prairie, and you still get your permit at 14... yep STILL.

Cyndy said...

I took my driver's test in a 1971 Buick Riviera (I called it my Bat Mobile). Longer than any car I know, and it even had a trailer hitch on it to add to its length! When I parallel parked, I barely tapped the dreaded orange cone in the back of the space (a big no-no and definite fail). I was mortified. But the tester smiled, handed me my "pass," and said there was no way he could have parked "this boat--on land or water!" To this day, I think of that moment whenever I am parallel parking...

wv: props: yup!

Pattern and Perspective said...

I took mine in a mini-van -- by the way, I hate mini-vans, big vans, etc. I also hate parallel parking -- try to avoid it at all costs.

And as for Lurch...my sister's husband's car was named the Silver Bullet. It was a crappy crappy car.

~ ennui ~ said...

oh' yea, I kringe a little! I have a young driver at home and it's crazy. Can't even imagine 14- I'd lose it!

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rxBambi said...

Mine was in a 1982 Fleetwood Cadillac, or boat if you prefer.
I had a 2003 Caddy CTS and that car really was the devil. Tried to kill me more than once. Her name was Christine ... and for good reason. Remind me to post about it sometime. Highlights include donuts on the interstate and popping 2 (TWO) tires in a pot hole And I was 35!

Char said...

Funny! I took my test in an old caprice but my first real car was a spitfire that my husband bought me when we were first married. Like him, the car was a lemon.

spudballoo said...

Oh I'm HOWLING here, this is hilarious. I'm trying to ignore the fact that there are places in the world where 14 year olds are allowed to drive, focusing on the giggling examiner and lurching in front of your grandma's house.

Fantastic secret, bring on the next...rolls hands in slightly seedy manner...

spudballoo said...

for completeness...in the UK you can't drive unti you're 17. And nearly all of us drive manual (shift stick) cars, or at least we take our tests in them. And then when we are nearly 40 and have to cart 2 screaming kids around we give in an get an automatic on the basis that it's one less thing to think about while trying not to crash due to constant search & rescue missions for lost toys/drinks etc whilst driving...

Extranjera said...

I failed my written test twice, my driving test 3 times and only got the license when the examiner said that I must remember never to drive alone and never to think that I can actually drive, but that there was no point in taking the exam any more. Every time I had almost driven either over or into someone. And twice onto oncoming traffic.

I get distracted by changing gears.

My driver's license is valid until like 2400 and I still don't think I can drive, but now believe it is a self-fulfilling prophesy. And don't feel too bad about it. I did survive traffic in Mexico City after all.

At least nowadays I'm far more likely to kill someone with a golf club than with a car (yesterday doesn't count, wasn't my car).

Polly said...

I was born in a wrong country! I got my licence at 25, having failed my driving test twice, and after all these years at the University I still claim that it was the hardest exam I ever had to take... great story, I can't believe there are places in this world where people are allowed to drive at 14!

Sammi said...

Oh I love this post it might help me when I come to learn to drive!

Kristin said...

On my first day of driver's ed, as we were approaching a stop sign, the instructor told me to "go straight through the stop". So I did. Coming up to the next stop sign he repeated the exact same instruction, so I repeated the same behavior. For the third stop sign he said, "I want you to STOP at the stop sign, and then go straight." Guess I was a bit to literal for his taste.

Red Shoes said...

I just can't seem to get past the sign in the background of your first photo. Does it really say, "Please look under your car for penguins"?

Bee said...

J - Camille and I are reading The LOng Winter and I constantly think of you and wonder how the HELL you managed to grow up in SD.

Here is part of the answer: You got a car at age 14! (I started driving in 15, and now that I have a 15 year old I can't believe that my parents LET me.)

Funny tale . . . and I wondered what happened to Snow? Do you think that she kept her name, or changed it as an adult? I wonder if she moved to California.

Amanda said...

Yep, I too got my driver's license at 14. And I took driver's Ed in High school too...I think for insurance reasons (believe that?) that there is no more driv er's Ed in school.

Our school even had a 'simulator' where you pretend drove and got to try things out, like driving drunk, etc. Good times.

Elizabeth said...

And now you have to go through the whole event again. Så du kan få et Dansk kørekort.