GETTING MY DRIVER’S LICENSE

Brenda swears I haven’t told this story, so here goes.

The summer I was sixteen (actually almost seventeen) my father decided it was time (finally!) to get my driver’s license. Because there was only one car in the whole family of five drivers, what was the use? But I did know how to drive, and the big day when I would try to become a legal driver had arrived. BJ, who was home from college, had had to get up early and drive both Mother and Daddy to work in order to keep the car for the day.

Before we left, Daddy called me on the phone to give me directions. First, he told me that all of the paperwork was on his dresser in his bedroom. And then I was to get BJ to drive me downtown, down Church Street all the way down to Third Avenue (which was a one way street), turn left, go up Third until we reached Union Street (another one way). Then we were to turn left on Union and pick him at Capital Hill. I agreed.

So we started off and all went well until we were on Church Street; then I told BJ to turn left on Seventh Avenue. We soon realized we could NOT turn right on Union so were forced to turn left and go around the block. Then I told her to turn left on Fifth Avenue, and you guessed it --- another time where we were stymied by the one way Union Street, and we circled another block. Finally, we made it down to Third where Daddy had said to come to in the first place. This time we made it fine and swung over to pick him up.

Unbeknownst to us, he had been standing on Capital hill watching us circle around the blocks, so was therefore mad as a hornet when he got into the car. Then I guess he realized that being angry wasn’t going to help, so he took a deep breath and said in a quiet voice, “Where is the paperwork?” I looked at him in horror and said in a small voice, “I forgot it.” Why in the world he didn’t just get out of the car and walk away, I don’t know, but he had BJ drive us back home and pick it up.

Somehow, I managed to pass the test, even to parallel park the car. But I’ve never forgotten that day.