My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t learn to drive as a teenager, as normal people do.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t ask Daddy\u2019s permission to use his car (the answer would have been NO), and I sure didn\u2019t want him as a driving instructor.\u00a0 Besides, I knew I couldn\u2019t risk damaging a vehicle he drove.\u00a0 Even though at this time he had owned few cars that anybody besides Daddy would notice a new scratch or dent on, his eagle eye caught any new irregularity.\u00a0 And woe be to the person responsible!<\/span><\/p>\n So when I graduated from Berry College in 1961 with plans to teach, I had no car and no driving skills.\u00a0 Furthermore, since my monthly take-home pay was to be about $235, I didn\u2019t see how I could afford a car.\u00a0 Uncle William came to the rescue.\u00a0 He worked at the Hub Ford Service Department in Atlanta, and he offered to get me a new Ford Falcon \u201cat cost.\u201d\u00a0 The total price–I think this included tax–was a little over $1900.\u00a0 The monthly payment was $71 per month.\u00a0 Since I had no income until my first paycheck in September, I could not get the car until the week before school started. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, I must somehow learn to drive in the meantime.\u00a0 My first choice teacher was Mama.\u00a0 She had learned several years before, though she still had to take her bottle of Miles Nervine along for when she got nervous.\u00a0 I begged, pleaded, and even tried to make her feel guilty.\u00a0 Nothing worked.\u00a0 In the meantime Daddy was eagerly volunteering for the job.\u00a0 Why, I have no idea.\u00a0 Much later, I taught two sons to drive while going through menopausal mood swings, and, if I\u2019d had it,\u00a0 I would have needed several quarts of Miles Nervine to survive the first few drives.\u00a0 Luckily, the patent medicine was no longer on the market.\u00a0 As Daddy kept volunteering,\u00a0 and I kept answering, \u201cNo!\u201d\u00a0 He began demanding, \u201cWhy not?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019d be cursing every two minutes, and I can\u2019t stand that,\u201d I finally told him.<\/span><\/p>\n Daddy seemed genuinely astonished.\u00a0 \u201cMe?\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 I learned your Mama how to drive, and I didn\u2019t cuss her.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHuh!\u201d Mama said, but Daddy ignored the comment.<\/span><\/p>\n At last, when I had despaired of finding anyone else, I accepted Daddy\u2019s offer.\u00a0 Each afternoon for a week, he took me to a rough, narrow road winding across a field, and turned the wheel of his precious car over to me.\u00a0 The experience was just as bad as I had anticipated.\u00a0 At the least little mistake–like running off the road into the grass, or going into a ditch, or driving over a little-bitty pine sapling–he would swear a blue streak, and then say, \u201cCan\u2019t you just do what I\u2019m telling you?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Apparently not, but we both survived.\u00a0 At the end of the week, I was driving–sort of.\u00a0 To stay in my proper lane, I was sighting by the hood ornament and the right fender.\u00a0 The first few weeks of driving the Falcon, I probably clutched dents into the steering wheel while navigating the 14 miles between our house to North Whitfield High School.\u00a0 By Christmas, I felt like a good driver.\u00a0 I guess I overestimated my skills, however. Decades later, when I met a former NWH basketball player who used to hitch a ride home with me on practice days, he confessed that he never asked me for a ride until all other possibilities had failed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMan, you were dangerous,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cWho taught you to drive?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI owe it all to Daddy,\u201d I confessed.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My latest book, HALLEY, has just been released by NewSouth Books:\u00a0www.newsouthbooks.com\/halley I didn\u2019t learn to drive as a teenager, as normal people do.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t ask Daddy\u2019s permission to use his car (the answer would have been NO), and I … Continue reading