Road Work

I remember my daddy giving me one of my first driving lessons on an open road when the sky turned unexpectedly black and unleashed a furious thunderstorm. The wiper blades couldn't keep up and in just seconds, the two lane highway was perilously close to flooding.

“Pull over,” he told me tensely, “Pull over and we'll wait it out.”

Already apprehensive, I did exactly as he told me, and pulled onto the shoulder. Some cars followed suit, others plowed forward and sent tidal waves of water washing over the old station wagon as they passed. He showed me how to turn on the emergency flashers and the defroster and we sat in white-knuckled silence until the storm passed and the water receded. I was shaking like a leaf and in no shape to resume driving but my daddy was firm.

“You're not always going to have sunshine,” he said gently, “There are going to be times when you'll need to know how to drive in the rain.”

It was still misting slightly as I turned back onto the road but the traffic had lightened and little by slow, my heart stopped hammering and I managed to regain my concentration. Calmly and quietly, he talked me through lane changes and turns and safe stopping distances, rules of a 4 way stop and courtesy, obeying speed limits and paying attention. Parallel parking very nearly proved to be my undoing in that old Mercury wagon - it was, as best I could imagine, like navigating a Sherman tank in a closet - but after a number of close calls and one or two minor scrapes, I made a passable job of it. The days of lessons in empty parking lots were over.

Now and again, my mother would take over the lessons in her snazzy pink and white Ford convertible with the whitewall tires and the Goldwater bumper stickers. She was studiously nonchalant about the process, handing me the keys and settling back with a Parliament in one hand and a Ladies Home Journal in the other. It was possible, although unlikely, that she had enormous faith in me but I was inclined to believe that after a few late afternoon manhattans, she was simply chilled out. Either way, she almost never gave advice and rarely corrected me and though I doubt she intended to teach me confidence, I learned it in spite of myself. Like the old station wagon, my daddy was cautious, careful, conservative, and though he tried mightily not to show it, often a little panicky when I drove. My mother, top down and out for a good time, went with the flow. It was an interesting contrast of cars and personalities.

I got my license on the first try and not long after, my first car, a baby blue Mustang that I fell head over heels in love with the moment I saw. They were sunshine days but parallel parking is still a bitch.