Gloria ~ May 16

 

DRIVING…PART TWO

 

Thinking about why my father was able to teach my brother Daniel how to drive, but not me.  Of course…as I wrote previously…being a boy Daniel knew all about cars already. I knew nothing. I didn’t know the gas from the brake  or what the buttons were for or did.

 

And my father could not explain any of that…not in words. If he did try to explain I could not understand his deaf speech and of course by my mother’s decree…I could not sign.  

 

There was no way for us to communicate.

 

The only sentence I really understood was when he would tell me...many times: 

 

Must have license.

 

Some years later after leaving home and moving to  NYC I started thinking…yeah…I should have license. So I got my learner’s permit…again…and enrolled in a driving school.

 

At that time I was working midtown on Madison Avenue . I decided that as a time saver it would be a good idea to have the instructor pick me up at work and then I could drive to the upper west side. That way I could have a lesson and get a ride home.

 

It all seemed quite logical. It was actually quite lunatic.

 

First of all, Madison Avenue midtown NYC is VERY congested at five o’clock. So my first lesson would be driving through heavy traffic and my instructor thought it might be best to go uptown by way of the West Side highway, which is more straightforward but still congested and not only that goes way faster.

 

And if that wasn’t enough of a very bad choice for a very nervous beginning driver…the car  was a manual with…of course…a stick shift. 

 

I didn’t even know such a thing existed. 

 

By the time we somehow managed to get to the highway alive my instructor was awakening to the fact that perhaps we both had made some not so smart choices with any part of this little scheme.  Because the only way I could drive on that highway was to press down on the gas thingy while the instructor was shifting gears on the floor.

 

We managed to get up the Highway and to my apartment by my steering and him shifting.

 

 By then I was done with the whole thing

 

It was twenty years before I tried again.