THE KEYS TO . . .
What a Big world these Tiny keys could open for us !
Living in small towns had advantages, but being able to drive the 15 miles over to Chapel Hill or Raleigh either after a ball game or on a Saturday night initiated us into whole new realms. Realms of geography, to be sure; but, realms of freedom, growing responsibility, approaching adulthood as well.
'Driver's Ed', as it came to be called, entered the academic curriculum years after our 16th birthdays . . . the age eligibility for the cherished license. Dad was my teacher. From the cul de sac at the National Guard Armory a few blocks from our house to the top of the hill near Dr. Jones's house was a distance of but a few blocks. After dad had given the basic rudiments of driving, I spent many Sunday afternoons driving that circuit. One of his often repeated observations was that driving per se was not difficult. The challenge came in watching out for the other 'expletive'. Mom never got a license, although years later, as a school employee, she took the class and the on-road driving requirements. That did not restrict her 'backseat driving' instructions for others. ( Dad sometimes called her "Miss Daisy" for the character in the movie, Driving Miss Daisy. But maybe that is another post for another occasion.)
Going to the License Office on turning 16 represented a kind of secular Bar (or Bat) Mitzvah for my cohort. Now almost 62 years later, I still rememberer my anticipation when dad arrived at the high school for my early dismissal from assembly so that he could drive me downtown for the examination. Parallel parking was the bugaboo (sometimes it still is) and what relief when I successfully navigated the family's 'woody' station wagon between two vehicles.
Then, with 'credential' in hand, our next move was to ask for 'the keys'. Parental assent was neither automatic nor without 'guidelines'. In his later years, dad maintained that he would occasionally decline our request, not that he needed the car for a particular reason, but rather as a reminder to his sons that use of the car was a privilege rather than an entitlement. I have no recollections of those refusals. Jim Hunt, former Governor of North Carolina, in a Commencement address at the college where I formerly taught, remembered his father's constant admonition on his getting 'the keys': "Remember who you are."
Even so, lack of experience and, sometimes, judgment brought 'close calls' and even 'bump-up's'. In an earlier post (Marlin: In Memoriam), I remembered how my high school friend had frightened our friend, Larry, and me one Sunday afternoon by driving his dad's big Oldsmobile 88 down a straight stretch of US Highway 64 at 105 mph. For sure I did not tell my parents and I seriously doubt that Dr. Mathiesen learned of Marlin's bravado. Later I learned the danger inherent in adjusting the car's heater gauges while driving. Let's just say that I overcorrected the steering and ended with the front of the car in a roadside ditch. Like my younger brother said of his years later ride in a New York City cab, "it improved my prayer life" for a while. I will spare my brother and two of my children extensive public recitation of their minor accidents. In none of these events was there any injury (except to our pride, perhaps).
Few of my high school friends had their own 'wheels'. In 1952 (or '53), for his sixteenth birthday, my friend Charles received a 'surprise' new Mercury from his parents. Charles went on to achieve some recognition as a stock car race driver. News of that perhaps surprised few of his classmates who had ridden with him.
In 1961, after years of 'asking Daddy for the keys', I purchased my first vehicle when 23 . . . after college and a year of seminary. I had a real job at an annual salary of $4500. The new Ford Falcon that I bought from Uncle Ken cost but a couple of thousand dollars or so.
Parking lots for Residential students at my undergraduate college required very little space. A few years later, when I returned to Graduate School at UNC-Chapel Hill, I lived perhaps a mile and a half from campus. The Parking Decal for my car's bumper specifically prohibited parking my car on campus. Currently, I work near Wake Forest University where I also attended Graduate School in 1966-67. Now there are ACRES of student parking lots.
I wonder if many of today's students have "ask[ed] daddy for the keys". Did you?
Satchel |
