'MOTHERS' DRIVING LESSONS'
'A testament to Fathers' Patience'
To this day I can still hear the sound of the heavy metal garage door folding itself around the front end of Fathers' car as if the door were a sardine can, and the car the key to the can. We all ran toward the garage to see what had happened on this excursion. Yes, there it was! The nose of the big Pontiac car stuck in the garage door, Mother at the wheel and Father with a look of horror on his face. This was driving lesson number 'finished'! No more lessons for Mother, she didn't want to drive anyway, and the stress it caused Father was not worth it. The garage door got fixed and in a week or so when they began talking to each other again, the subject was avoided. We snickered and giggled over it all, but the lessons were over. Father gave up, Mother didn't care, and life went on.
Mother did not drive, and frankly had no interest in doing so. Many of our friends mothers did not drive in those days of the 1950s and early 1960s, so it was no big deal. One by one as the years passed we all got, at our fathers' insistence, our license to drive a car. Every one of us banged the family car off light poles, garbage cans and mail boxes, overloaded it with friends, got stuck in the sand of a beach that was off limits, but Father never got too wound up over that. The print of his hand was imbedded in the dash of every car we had, where he had reached out his arm and hung on for dear life as he taught us the technique of going around parking lots. His favorite advice was always "Stay right of the yellow line, the other fellow will do the same, and it will be OK!" We read the rule books, passed our tests, and off we went, ready to destroy the car. That was a ritual repeated for the five of us.
The years flew by and in the 1970s Mother and Father were living in St.John's again.. One day Mother announced she would take driving lessons from a professional driving school. Everybody else could do it and she would too. She read up on it, assessed the costs, how convenient it would be, and decided to go for it. By this time Father was mildly amused, because he had been through the trials and tribulations with most of us, and also had taken people out to test them for their license, a task the RCMP did in those days, and had seen it all. On one occasion he had taken a lady for her test in Grand Falls, and she seemed to be doing very well until she went up High Street, and rounded the monument. Then she pushed on the gas instead of the brake, her car shot forward and to the right, and with Father sitting in the passenger seat with fingers again imbedded in her dashboard, she cleaned the bumpers of half a dozen cars parked on the street. She failed the test, and Father had a story to last a lifetime. So he was not about to attempt teaching his wife anything about driving again. Enough was enough!
Mother signed up for the driving lessons. After she had been out several times she came home saying that the instructor smelled like 'booze', something she had no use for, let alone in a driving instructor. She reported that he would nod off to sleep in the car with her at the wheel..We decided she had gotten herself in too deeply and wanted an excuse to quit. Consequently nobody paid any attention and off she went for another lesson, and of course, she had the same instructor. She arrived home after this lesson very upset and angry. She repeatedly said the instructor had been drinking. She was no fool, she might not know how to drive but she knew a drunk when she saw one! She just got a laugh, a pat on the back to keep up the good work, and everyone carried on.
Shortly before her next lesson Father was reading the daily newspaper, when what should he come across but an article about a Driving School Instructor who was arrested for impaired driving, and was now suspended. And of all things, it was Mothers' instructor! She was right. He was drinking! Nothing to do but tell her the truth, which Dad did. Mother then said ten thousand times over that she 'darned well knew he was drinking and nobody would listen', and the lessons came to an abrupt end right then and there. She never tried again, and does not drive to this day and never will. Of course we all felt guilty that we had not paid more attention to her. Dad blamed himself, thinking she could have been killed with the idiot instructor. So no drivers' license ever came to be for Mother.
And I agreed that she should not bother. Almost all of us had our drivers' license, and had wrecked a car or two. Dad was a good driver, and even when I left home the car and a driver were usually always there for Mom.
As my parents grew older, going for a nice afternoon drive was one of their favourite things to do. Then Father became ill and had heart surgery. His main aim was to get back driving, and he did. Not too long after he was back in his new car, driving across town with Mother, another car ran a red light, smashing their car broadside. The air bag deployed, and Mother looked at Father with all the white chalky substance from the air bag on his face and she thought he had died until he finally answered her. She was terrified.
She didn't drive a car, she didn't want to, she didn't know the rules of the road, but she darn well knew that what happened was wrong. If their light was green, then the offending car ran a red light and could have killed my father, his chest barely healed from heart surgery. She wasn't scared of anything or anybody when it came to caring for Dad. She was out of the car, ordering people around, demanding help for her husband, forgetting that she could be hurt herself. And as it happened Father was Ok, but Mom had a broken bone or two. She also exhibited the first case of road rage from a passenger in a vehicle that St.John's had ever recorded. She did not need a piece of paper or lessons to learn how to protect her loved ones. She never did. She ordered everyone around until the police and ambulance arrived. Mothers' passenger side had no air bag, so she sustained the injuries. And painful injuries they were.
She gradually recovered and they got a car with two air bags, the lessons became a family story as did Mothers reaction to the drunk instructor, the mutilated garage door had long been forgotten, as had most of our fender benders.
No, she did not learn to drive. But she knew how to protect, and how to soothe the cries and tears after the accidents we would have, and she knew no fear when she thought our father was hurt by someone who ran a red light.
After every accident, small or big, the first question from both Mom and Dad, would be "Are you OK? Is anyone hurt?"
As my brother David says, those fender benders we had were always an excuse for Dad to get another car. The decision would be made after the tears were dried, and the driver reassured. Usually at meal times the discussions would take place.
No, Mother does not drive. But she has a "Supporters' License," for all the support, the drying of the tears, the special meal she would make when we were upset, and for getting in a car with a teenager who just came from getting their drivers license and not saying anything about being afraid because they were new drivers. She drove with us all, I told her once it reminded me of the movie, "Driving Miss Daisy," only for us it was "Driving Mrs. Mom" .That suited her just fine. She announced that it was just as well she didn't drive, she didn't like carrying keys anyway! I really do believe we were better drivers when we drove Mother, because somehow she would know if we were not obeying the rules of the road. I truly don't know how that worked! I just enjoyed the fact that she trusted me when sometimes I would be doubting myself. So I believe that she did not take driving lessons, but in her own way she gave them to us! Her trust in our capabilities gave us confidence, and that was how she taught US HOW TO DRIVE!
Thanks Mom!
Bonnie Jarvis-Lowe