I am not sure how I learned to drive. I had parents who drove. I had three older brothers who drove.
My memories of growing up are patchy. I remember a brown dodge truck with my sister in and I moving the stick shift to gear down as I was travelling too fast and the corner was approaching.
My sister was hanging on to the door handle and as gravel sprayed as we took that corner, my sister held on as the door opened and then closed as I slowed and stopped scared out of my wits.
I do remember a neighbour offering their big boat for me to use for my driver’s test. The big boat was some type of 70’s Oldsmobile; yellow with a green roof. I can picture heading to the town where we never shopped or went to school the day of the exam. I was not sure of the streets; a feeling of not being prepared.
I did really well in all my driving and only a few points to my discredit when the tester could not find two cars in the whole town for parallel parking.
Instead, the instructor had me back up from one intersection to another along a street that had not one car parked. I did and passed my driver’s test. It was my third try. I had used our family station wagon on previous attempts and my parallel parking manoeuvring had not been stellar.
Hence, the neighbour’s offer of a car, as what happened to one; as in my failed attempts; made it around the telephone party line quite lickity split.
March 2018 – Ten Minute Writing
ellensagh 