Mr. Flint's Driver's Ed

I was just 15, anxious for life, but determined to be a "good girl".
"Good Girl's" have to resist the temptation to experience what everybody else is doing in 1975 in Yucca Valley, CA.  And everybody was experimenting with something or someone.  So I locked myself away in the good girl closet, with my books.  They were the only entertainment and reality that was comfortable.

The problem with being a good girl is the passivity you have to maintain mentally to be so withdrawn from your surrounding that you protect yourself from alluring indulgences.  You are so disengaged that you can't cope with the real world.  So I was pretty much just a virgin who couldn't drive.

My parents would not teach me.  They liked my academic performance, but the privileges of a good girl weren't bestowed to me.  Like learning to drive.  Instead all learning was achieved via the school, so they mentally had delegated my driving to the school's responsibility. 

I don't remember much detail about Mr.Flint. Short, skinny, glasses, sarcastic and in his late twenties; he had been teaching long enough to have lost all illusions about being a teacher.  In the 70's teaching was tough.  Teachers had lost all authority in the classroom, so looking back, he was likely much nicer than credited.  But his reputation was hateful.

The first question posed was, "Who had driven before?"
Boy one's dad taught him when he was 14 in the family truck in the dessert.
"Wonderful!" was Mr. Flint's reply.
What?!  He just admitted his father had broken the law! And Flint declared that wonderful!?
The next girl shyly admitted she'd been driving with her sister for 6 months.
"Great!" Flint's eyebrows lifted with hope.
Boy two's grandfather helped him get his permit and prepared him for drivers ed during summer vacation.
"Okay!!" Mr. Flint was actually beginning to smile.  Until I opened my mouth.
"I've turned a car on to warm up the engine in winter."
All joy drained from his face, and in disappointment he muttered, "I knew it was too good to be true."

My nickname was "Whiplash."  Academically I was an excellent student, but practical application was painfully lacking.  I learned to operate a vehicle passing the class.  

With my permit, I drove back and forth to school with friends and  relatives, seldom my parents, who'd never pop for insurance therefore I never got my license.  The excuse was I wasn't a good driver.

I don't know if that was true.  Loyal to parental disgression, as good girls are, I told myself it was.  Watching my 20 year old daughter learning to drive, helped me to realize the revelations I began my story with.  She loves her books.  It wasn't until she had worked two part time jobs for over 6 months that she wasn't terrifying behind the wheel.

When did I learn to drive?
I was 23, with two children, working as a daily operations manager in a non-for-profit.  I was tired of being dependent on others.  My husband would take me out driving on country roads in the rain after he got home at night.  In the rain, because it was the only time he wasn't working after his day job outside on the farm we lived.  Tom could drive 55mph in reverse on that farm.  He doesn't believe in wasting time turning a vehicle around.  I couldn't do so well.  So he still says I'm not very good at backing up. 

I failed my first driving test by turning right on red where a sign forbade it. But the second time I passed!  I was wise to those tricky signs!  I was determined to be in the driver's seat.