Learning to Drive

I've been purging old files and messages - in doing so a few worthy of rescue came to light. For example:

Mother was calm and patient as a driving instructor but Dad was quick tempered and I got flustered. But moving around the pasture and on a short stretch of country road was not the whole driving world so I was quick to sign up for driving class at Ardmore High my junior year in '47. My driving group had 3 boys, me and the instructor. Those guys made my life miserable...criticizing and/or jeering at everything I did. Then came test day...two of the guys flunked the written and the other flunked driving. I scored 100% on written and 94% on driving. Last laugh. After that I did a lot of driving. Mother and Dad were happy to delegate to me most of the family errands and the chauffeuring of my younger brothers. On our cross country trips I had the bulk of the time at the wheel. Shortly after signing on to my first teaching job after college, I bought my first car - a '49 Plymouth convertible. It was black with those tires that had so much white on them. It needed a new top so I had it outfitted in black-and-white hound's-tooth check. Oh, wow! I was convinced that was the snazziest car in all of Oklahoma. Since then I've had quite a few other "favorites" and many miles on the road and tons of memories. Some pictures, too. I do think we paid more attention to our driving in those old cars - we had to - what with the footwork on the clutch and shifting gears and hand signals.