Learning To Drive Late

A friend, who grew up in Long Beach, was talking about how he didn't learn to drive until he was 18 (a legacy of an older brother's irresponsible antics). That reminded me of when I was learning to drive, and how today's teenagers seem to be learning to drive later and later. I was anxious to learn. At 16, in New Mexico in the 70's, I was already learning a lot later than many of my friends, and I didn't have a car of my own, and so the social pressure was intense, and escape seemed impossible.

I used to take my parent's VW Campmobile into the uninhabited spaghetti tangle of dirt roads behind Rio Rancho, NM. That vast area was bulldozed in the early-and-mid 60's according to an obscure Sandoval County ordinance requiring all developers to bulldoze roads on all their land, even if the land area (the former King Ranch) was larger than some small states.

Out there, on the edge of oblivion, I would practice parallel parking and other urban driving skills. The area was not far from the Black family's Seven-Bar Airport (where Cottonwood Mall is located today, near Coors and Corrales Rd.), and small private planes would dip down and buzz me in the boonies. I felt like Cary Grant in "North By Northwest," except in a VW Campmobile. Even out there in the boonies, the pressure was intense, and escape seemed impossible.

Driver's Ed was at Lincoln Jr. High School, not far from downtown Albuquerque. The teacher I got in Driver's Ed was the same guy who taught my 7th-grade Shop class at Taylor Jr. High School. I was always worried that he would remember the crummy screwdriver I made in junior high, and how the space in the handle was too big for the shank, and how the two were held together with sawdust and metal filings, and couldn't stand much torque, and so the pressure was intense, and escape seemed impossible.

Ah, memories, and the nostalgic haze of time!