Memories from the Jar - Learning to Drive

So, there's the unofficial title of my jar entries...subject to change if I come up with something better.

Cole loves my jar and always asks to pick a slip of paper out for me. Here's the one he picked this time:

"Tell about where and when you learned to drive. Any memorable experiences?"

Learning to drive really is a pretty big milestone for your average teenager, I think. There is a huge sense of power and independence that comes with being able to get yourself from point A to point B without your parents' help...exciting for the teenager, yes! But now that I'm a parent I think I'm getting an inkling of how scary that is for the parent. In any case, I remember clearly my path to freedom!

My experience with driving actually started well before the official Driver's Ed classes started. My parents felt that it was important for us to learn some driving skills before Driver's Ed...I think they were wise. For one thing, all the Driver's Ed cars have automatic transmissions, but every car my family owned had a manual transmission. So they had to take it upon themselves to teach us the operation of a clutch and a stick shift before they could really feel any confidence about letting us drive on our own. I remember several practice sessions...we lived in Fountain Green at the time, the epitome of small towns. It was a good place to let us practice driving around. It took me a very long time, I think, to learn to smoothly navigate the clutch. I was a pro at alternately peeling out or killing the engine, depending on how lucky I got. I do remember my dad finally realizing what my problem was and explaining to me how I needed to coordinate the movement of letting up on the clutch while gradually pressing down on the gas pedal. It was a pretty sweet feeling when I started to consistently achieve a smooth start. There is something really empowering about mastering that skill--now that I can drive a car with a stick shift, I prefer it. Both of our cars though are automatic, and living in L.A. I think that's a blessing. I can only imagine how awful it would be to navigate the traffic out here with a manual. But someday, hopefully we'll live in a less urban area and then I'd like to own a manual transmission car again.

Once we mastered driving on the backroads of Fountain Green, we moved up to Main Street, then to driving to the bigger towns in Sanpete County...eventually even to Mount Pleasant, where they had stop lights (gasp!). There's nothing quite as heart-stopping as being at a stoplight, 15 years old, waiting for the light to turn green and wondering whether you'll be able to get the car to move or if you'll just hold up traffic as you repeatedly kill the engine. Thankfully I always managed, though I remember my brother (I think it was Bart) telling me about such an experience he had in Provo. If I remember correctly, the light turned green, but he never got the car to move before the light turned red again, and he had a lineup of honking, angry cars behind him. Oh, the horror!!

My Grandma Gehring, not being your typical grandmother type (she was always blond and youthful) also loved to supplement our early driving experiences when we visited Boise. Since I lived with her the summer I turned 16, she gave me several opportunities to learn "big city driving." Grandma drove a black sports car (which thankfully was an automatic) and really, really enjoyed taking her learning-to-drive grandchildren out for a spin. She was really laid back and just let us do our thing. I still remember the exhilaration of driving Grandma's sports car around Boise and realizing I could pull it off without anyone being alerted to my driving naivety.

The most memorable experience from learning to drive is actually one that I often tell when I'm asked to tell my most embarrassing moment. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am verging on narcoleptic--I can fall asleep almost anywhere and anytime. I used to be notorious for falling asleep in my classes at school and every week at church (though kids have thoroughly cured me of that). Anyway, I was working on my practice driving hours with the instructor, and I was scheduled to drive one morning before school during Homecoming week. I'd stayed out too late the night before with friends at some Homecoming activity, and so I was a wee bit tired. I didn't think it would be a problem, and all was going well...we were driving down the highway between Nephi and Levan when suddenly I realized that the instructor's hand was on the steering wheel and he was correcting my path. You guessed it...I fell asleep at the wheel in the Driver's Ed car! It's a miracle I ever got my license after that...and really, I probably shouldn't have, because a few years later I wrecked my parents' van when I fell asleep at the wheel. But, that's another story for another day.

I do still remember clearly the first time I drove a car by myself...what a heady experience! We were living in Nephi in the rental home that we stayed in for a few months before we could move into our house. I had just received my license, and I needed to go to the high school (a whopping five or six blocks away, but still!) for some after-school activity. My mom handed me the keys to our trusty 1978 Toyota Celica, I hopped in, and I was off! It was strange to realize that in my sixteen years of life, I had never been in a moving car by myself.

It's funny--looking back on the excitement of learning to drive, I realize that now, if I'm given a choice, I'd rather not drive. I'm happy to let Brian drive--especially on a long trip! But even around town, if he's in the car, he's usually driving. I suppose now that I am fully independent, the excitement of driving myself around has dissipated. And it's really terrifying to realize that in a mere 13 years, I'll have my own independent child anxious to get his drivers' license...better not think about that quite yet.