Learning to Drive

For some reason, my daddy was in no  hurry for me to learn to drive. The main reason, I think, was because he didn't want to teach me. 

Mother certainly could not, because after driving into a house at age sixteen she gave up the sport. (driving, not slamming into houses, though, come to think of it, I guess she gave that up, too)

But I was whining so badly, that Daddy decided Boyfriend could take me out in our station wagon and teach me.

Looking back, and having had a sixteen year old daughter myself, I ask a reasonable question: Was the man insane?

Anyway, this car was the one my daddy used to  haul riders back and forth to Lockheed every day. In fact it was the only vehicle we had.

Now you're asking if my daddy was nuts.

Boyfriend and I go out on a fairly unused road, with a good straight of way, and he tells me all the important stuff. "This is the steering wheel. This is the brake, this is the gas, etc."

He told me to start off slowly, gently pressing the accelerator until we got up to a good speed of forty or so.

I cranked the car, put it in drive and started off. He fussed on me about where my hands were on the wheel, then became quiet.

You know this is going to end badly, don't you?

Suddenly the car, without my prompting it in any way, started going faster and faster. Boyfriend was yelling at me to slow down, was I crazy like my daddy, etc. 

I explained to him calmly that my foot was no longer on the gas and when I pumped the brake it went to the floor without doing a blame thing. 

By now were up to about sixty-five on a small country road; remember I'd never driven before.

Boyfriend reached over and he jerked the gear shift into neutral.

If we had been a cartoon, the body of the car would have left the frame and them settled back down. The car shuddered so badly I thought the motor would fall out, or something worse; if there was worse.

Remember, this was before the time of cell phones. Boyfriend drove back to my house with no brakes. We crept, and if he had to stop, he used the emergency brake.

I figured my life was pretty much over. I contemplated not going home, instead checking to see if there was an orphanage that would let me live there.

Daddy was right where we left him, his nose stuck in a book.

I don't remember who said what; how the whole episode was explained.

Daddy didn't say much, just called the tow truck. On Monday morning the garage told him that the gas hung up on the brake lines, disabling them both. He was told to thank God that it had happened where it did, for if it had happened in Marietta during rush hour, somebody might have died.

So my life was spared.

Surprisingly, this didn't turn me off to driving, and I went on to get my license.

After all, I didn't drive into a house, or anything silly like that.