IN CHARGE
One of the truly great thrills which comes to most American boys and girls is the official certifiation allowing them to take over the sole control of a bucket of bolts on a public highway and to be repectively called a "driver."
Until one acheives that level in society, he or she is still a kid.
In some marvelous manner that little piece of plastic made into a card to be carried about and displayed, a name, an address and some statistics can set one apart from all others.
I think most of us remember those days when we were lerning to drive, but not quite to the exam point. It was a job my father undertook with both of us older boys and, then, by the time my younger brother and two sisters became of driving age it was a subject taught in high school. For various reason - some of them sound and others based on fears of failure - parents did not want to be the one required to teach their children to drive. Little Junior, smart as he was, of course, never seemed to be "mature" enough to take on responsibiltiies associated with driving. That applied to the family car and even more so to the jalopy he wanted so urgently.
Farm kids, I always felt, had a special advantage, because their driving skills were put to use at a far younger age. The farm was commonly low on hands to do all the work required, and it seemed completely logical that the young boys and girl present could be the one to sit on the tractor and keep it going at a slow pace which other necessary work was being done by the farmer. Pretty soon it seemed just as logical to ask the kid to "bring the truck around" from wherever it had been parked. I knew farm kids who were driving tractors, cars and trucks before they were in school. Of course, much of that might be said to have been "against the law", but legal law and common sense ae both often twisted into some odd shapes when focused by need.
My Dad instructed me. He did a good job, I have long realized he did so with a calm confidence which was remarkable. His comments were always positive , he never scolded or yelled as I have seen and heard others do. After all these years, I have realized how he was able to do it all so well.
Skip back a few decades. It was in the Fall of the year 1924 that Dad bought his first car. That was the year he was thirty-four years of age. It was a Ford "touring car", black, of course, because that was the only color of car Henry made in those days. It had a printed door on the driver's side with a "luggage" rack on the outside running board to hold tools and a tire patching kit with glue.
Dad bought the car. The saleman showed him how the things worked; they drove the car across town and back to the garage where the sales person dismounted and Dad drove the car home for us to see. Others, I find, learned to drive in pretty much the same way by trial and error during the next few weeks.
A.L.M. December 3, 2003 [c720wds]
