My mother started to drive as a young woman; I assumed it
was when she was in her teens although I know very little about these times.
She did get a driver’s license early on and renewed it every year of her life.
I do know when she married my father in 1935, part of the
deal was that he was the driver. I never remember her driving anywhere when I
was a child. It was just what was.
My mother cooked and my father drove.
Being much younger than my father (11 years) she knew there
may come a day when she would be alone and need to drive and didn’t want to
start from scratch, so she kept renewing the license.
My father passed away when my mother was 60, and while we
got rid of his somewhat problematic car, it was not too long before she decided
to purchase a new car for herself.
We visited a car salesman friend of mine and made a deal on
a new Chevrolet Nova that seemed just about right for her. When she eventually stopped driving the car some
years later, it was purchased by me and eventually went to my son where it
ended its life.
But while she was driving, she was a cautious driver, and
took a series of professional driving and parking lessons after her first
lesson from me, who kept my hands over my eyes and screamed a bit.
After she was comfortable driving, she helped my family out
a great deal by helping with getting kids
to school and events when needed and helping to deliver the newspaper on a rainy
day and often saved my sons from getting soaked.
My focus here was the habit she developed of not being
comfortable making left turns, so she stayed with right ones. She developed elaborate
schemes for getting from place to place, only turning right. Sometimes she
would proudly show up early on a Sunday to announce she had a done dry run to
someplace or another that she had to go the next day and figured out how to do
it turning right only.
It was an amazing skill, one that I admired but never tried
to copy.
You can try it, just pick a destination, preferably urban as
she was driving around Baltimore, Maryland, and figure on a place at least 15
minutes away and get there without turning left.
It is of course possible, just
not my way of thinking.
