Learning To Drive

One day when I was nine or ten I saw Dad driving the tractor back from working in the south field and ran to meet him, begging to drive the tractor home. I got along fine until it came time to turn into the lane leading to the barn. I made the initial turn OK, but in my excitement I forgot to turn back and ran into the box elder tree beside the lane, tearing off some of the bark. There wasn’t any damage—except to my pride—but I didn’t get another chance to drive for at least a year.

Even after that embarrassing start, I started driving the car when I was thirteen. I drove home from church a couple of times, very slowly and carefully. Soon I was considered responsible enough to drive to Patton’s store in Prairie Home and other nearby places on errands. I drove to the final program at East Center as I was completing eighth grade.

I never had to take a driving test. In fact, when I started driving there weren’t any drivers’ licenses in Illinois. When licenses were introduced a couple of years later (at a cost of fifty cents for four years), Dad estimated that I had driven more than 500 miles, so I was issued a license as a seasoned driver with no test required. It is also interesting that there was no posted speed limit on most roads back then; the limit was simply “reasonable and proper considering driving conditions.”

After I started driving Mother decided that she would like to learn and asked me to coach her. She was making pretty good progress after two or three lessons, although she was quite tense and nervous about driving. Then came the afternoon I picked he up after a Ladies Aid meeting at Mrs. McConnell’s and she started to drive home. Mother was short and she was having trouble seeing over the hood as we started out the driveway. She was trying to shift her position in the seat and became distracted and was headed for a shallow ditch beside the driveway. This wasn’t an emergency; I simply overreacted. I tried to put my foot on the brake, but hit the accelerator instead. We jumped across that little ditch and away we went. Mother drove all the way home in second gear and even though I explained that it was really my fault she never attempted driving again until several years later.

When I was in high school I entered a safe driving competition sponsored by Ford. I don’t remember other details, but clearly recall practicing trying to stop within forty feet from twenty miles an hour without tipping over an empty quart milk bottle on the floor of the car.