Super-sized Series

 Driving Part 1

 


The Driving Instructor by Lynn White

I needed rather a lot of driving lessons.
My lack of a sense of direction didn’t help.
Nor, did my occasional confusion
between right and left.
But, coming up to my test,
my new instructor was sympathetic.
We could go for a Sunday drive, he said.
I could have a free lesson
and maybe a drink after.
Well, why not?
He told me a story over the drink.
He’d been in the war in Singapore.
Such horror.
And conscripts all.
In the chaos 
an enemy soldier had shot his dog.
Shot her.
Killed her,
dead.
Such horror.
And conscripts all.
But, it was alright in the end,
he’d ‘got’ the one who did it.
‘Got him.’ 
Shot him! 
Killed him, 
dead.
Such horror.
And conscripts all.
The life of a man for the life of a dog.
Both shot.
Both killed.
Both dead.
It was the life of the man I valued most.
And I said so
using a lot of words.
Yes, rather a lot of words
loudly spoken.
So no more free lessons,
but I passed my test.

First published in Silver Birch Press


The Day I Made My Father Cry by Shelly Blankman


I was 18 when I first learned to drive. Three
driving schools, ten weeks of lessons, five
driving instructors, and one phone call from
a manager. You’re wasting your money. You’re
not paying attention. You’ll get a refund. 


I didn’t want a refund. I wanted a license, just
like all the other kids. Hey, let’s go for a ride!
We’ll show them!!  Dad always had a reassuring
smile, and I trusted him. I just didn’t trust myself.


He put his arms around my shoulders, which was
calming — until we reached his brand new, bright
red Grand Le Mans, shiny like wet paint. Its vanity
license plate read 007, a gift from Mom who worked
for the Department of Motor Vehicles at the time.
Dad loved James Bond and enjoyed the compliments. 


I got nervous. A new car and a new driver with a dad
who had a tad too much faith in his daughter. The car
had that new car scent and felt like what a limo must 
feel like – soft seats, plenty of space, a rich red carpet.


I froze. You know what to do, Dad gently told me.  The first
part was easy. Buckle in. Then find the gas pedal. To the left. 
No, to the right. Now the brake. That must be the pedal. Now
adjust the seat. Ready, set, and  oops – I forgot to adjust
the rear view mirror. I could feel my father’s proud
smile. So proud that he pushed back the seats and stretched
out his legs.


One problem: He was a foot taller than I.  I can’t reach the
brake. Don’t worry about the brake. Worry about your steering.
They’d never taught me that in driving school. I knew he’d be
right next to me if I ran into a problem and I felt capable behind
the wheel for the first time. No instructor judging me. Just my dad 
and me. No human targets or parked cars. A little weaving and
wobbling, 


And then, as if in a dream, a light pole appeared before me
like a giant silver rolling pin, and dropped on its side
flattening wildflowers like pie dough. In a blur of  blue
flashes, a police car screeched by us, waking up my father.


Until that moment, I’d never seen Dad cry. And I’d never seen 
a shiny red accordion as big as a car. Are you ok?  he asked. I wasn’t
sure whether he was crying over me or his crumpled car with its
new vanity license plate that now read 07.


There’s nothing worse than going out for a driving lesson in
your father’s brand new car and coming home in a police car.  
As for my transportation, I’m now strictly a pedestrian. And
I don’t even need a license.




Learning to Drive—Eventually by Joan Leotta

In 1958, Ford’s designers
made my father smile
His favorite, auto, the T-Bird,
grew from two doors to four-
My mother argued against
such a pricey showy car, but
by 1961, a dove-white
Thunderbird nested
in our drive. Power windows,
sleek design. My father’s pride.
January 10, 1964 on my sweet
snowy 16th birthday
Daddy marched me
to the driveway.
He reversed our seating for this
occasion, my first driving lesson.
He talked me through
shifts, dials, horn
brakes, gas and mirrors.
Under his tutelage, my hands,
inserted key.
Following my father’s
calm, loving voice,
his pride and joy sprang to life.
Snow drifted through the air
as I backed out
onto the street.
I sat at the wheel,
my father gently
issuing commands.
January’s snows had slicked
streets so we proceeded …
slowly. So far, so good,
until we reached a narrow
side street. Snow-covered lumps
of parked cars
festooned each side.
My father directed me to turn
down the road. I stuck to the ruts
where other brave drivers
had blazed a path.
Half-way down,
a car approached from the other
direction.
“Go right!” my father barked.
My father, barking?
I hit the gas.
“No NO!”
T-Bird became a hawk
swerving oh so close to
those snowy side
lumps of car.
“Avoid AVOID! SLOWLY!
Take your foot off…”
I hit the brake. Car fishtailed,
narrowly avoiding those parked
side sentinels. The approaching
car slowed, then stopped as well.
I leaned onto the steering wheel—
began to sob, “I don’t know what to do.”
My father was silent for a moment, then,
he opened his door, walked around
to driver’s side and motioned
for me to take passenger seat.
He expertly extricated us
from that snowy hell. I don’t remember how
but do recall there was no contact with
approaching or parked vehicles.
Five years later,
on a mid-summer day, I finally
took my driver’s license test.
Passed on first try—not in my father’s car.


dad's knees by j.lewis aka Jim Lewis
 
were knobby and wobbly, but then
what did that matter when
there i sat, small hands on the wheel
of an old ford truck
my only job to hold on, hold on
as dad played the gas and clutch
slid the gears up and down
me giggling and bouncing
on the hobby horse of his lap
as we barreled down dirt roads
at five or ten miles an hour
 
in child-speed, that was a hundred or two
and there was nothing too big to conquer
i was a MAN driving a truck
and with every bump in the road
dad's reassuring voice
that would fuel me for a lifetime
 
(previously published by Silver Birch Press)


Student Driver by Jayne Jaudon Ferrer

Funny the things you don’t notice
till life flashes before your eyes—
like how half the streets in my town
are too narrow . . . 
like how 35 miles per hour
feels waaaaay too fast 
when you’re in the passenger seat . . . 
like how vivid the images can be 
when contemplating death
by mailbox impalement.
Take it from one who survived:
far beyond the terrible twos,
light years beyond thirteen,
the Year of the Learner’s Permit
is the one that will gray your hair.
No matter how eager you think you are
to stop schlepping him all over town,
no matter how thrilled you think you will be
to send him to the store,
no matter how ready you think you are
to put him in the driver’s seat,
you are not.

From A Mother of Sons  



Driving Lesson by Judith Waller Carroll

Two years since I’ve taken the wheel,
and 6 a. m  on a Sunday morning 
is a good time to practice, 
the streets still, no whizzing cars.

But it is dark and raining and our bed is warm.
You have brought me a cup of tea.

I’d rather watch fat drops of rain 
slide down the panes of the window. 
The leaves shimmy and sway. 

Later I will walk to the library 
if the rain lets up, as it always seems to do,
and make a promise to myself 
to practice driving next Sunday morning 
if it doesn’t rain
 
though I have grown used to my slow routine 
in this speedy city, where I do far less 
than when we lived in the quiet woods. 


At 80 and 83 we drive 100 miles round trip through the mountains to renew our driver’s licenses by Sharon Waller Knutson

White haired and wrinkled.
Wheelchair in the backseat.
Pain patches on bleating backs.
Shaky hands scrawling scribbles.
Eyesight not 20/20 like the forties

when at fourteen we got our first
driver’s license with brown curly hair,
strong straight spines, steady hands
and perfect penmanship. I teeter
and totter as I stand before a dark

haired clerk with a round face
and sweet smile like my oldest
granddaughter. Do you need a chair?
she asks and a muscular man
tries to lift a chair from the waiting

room but they are nailed to the floor
to thwart thieves and terrorists.
She brings me a chair as I watch
windows down as my husband’s
voice recites letters on the last line.

I put my glasses on as my clerk whips
out the eye chart and the letters
swim like sea horses so I read the large
letters on the fourth line from bottom.
She points to the line below and I say, I can’t.

And her face crumples like she is going
to cry and I know I’ve failed. Just issue
me a travel voucher. Hubby does the driving.
I say. Her smile is back and she dubs me,
Passenger Princess as she passes me the paper.

I don’t need a driver’s license to get behind
the wheel of the electric cart and race
up and down the aisles of Walmart avoiding
crashing into other carts and children, 
fearless and free like when I was fourteen.





 
Ken Talley driving home

Driving Home by Mary Ellen Talley

I refrain from cracking mirrors,
never take a room on the 13th floor,
and walk around, not under ladders,

say bless you 
when a person sneezes
and often cross my fingers.

Sometimes a good luck omen
is Mother Nature’s way
of offering reassurance.

It’s providential to sight ladybugs
and four-leaf clovers.
I’m fond of finding lucky pennies.

For two months you obeyed 
the neurosurgeon, no driving
until your post-op visit clearance.

That day, you held the steering wheel
as if your knuckles held your freedom.
The doc had said, You’re good to go.

It was just another Seattle
windshield wiper afternoon. 
You drove us north past streetlights

whereupon a broad rainbow
curved the cerulean sky in front of us
and we drove toward it.


After the Shift by Joanne Durham

The man in the gray Dart followed me
on the freeway as I drove home 
after bolting fenders onto Firebirds on swing shift
that slogged into 2 am with overtime, not many cars clogging
the road so even half melted into sleep I couldn’t help
but notice him, headlights glaring 
like stalking cats. First I figured 
it was post assembly-line delirium 
so I switched to the left lane and picked up speed 
and so did he, then back to the right
practically crawled and so did he. So no joke,
or at best the joke’s on me, long before GPS
or cell phones, Rapunzel stuck in her tower with shorn locks 
and no prince to save her – then a tiny clearing in my foggy mind 
eyes the Hill Street exit
where I can double back on the freeway 
in a flash, so I dart to the off-ramp, make the U-ey 
and lose that bewildered creep. 
I tip the rear-view mirror to double check 
my Steve McQueen car chase. Old fears flash in the dark 
then fade behind me with a rush of power as Venus 
ignites the night sky. 

From To Drink from a Wider Bowl

I-70, Crossing Kansas by Sarah Russell

Asphalt casts a line to the horizon.
It’s early May—wheat, a nascent green,
and plowing started for the corn. Clouds loom
like gargoyles in the west with slanted rain
a hundred miles ahead. Billboards reading
Quilt Cottage and Gove City Yarns share
the berm with Jesus Saves. Stuckey‘s kitsch
and pecan logs have given way to services
for 18-wheelers. A bellied driver, stiffened
from the road, buys a Hillerman audio book
and a tin of Red Man, flirts with a girl behind
the counter who knows better than to trust a man
with shallow roots. No forests here, just winter-crippled
cottonwoods along the gullies where Angus, innocent
and black, graze until their harvest. Towns appear,
modest skylines dwarfed by corporate silos—cathedrals
to Manna. Sturdy land, proud of soldiers and subsidies,
apple pies and new John Deere’s—a foursquare fulcrum
between the ivied East and barefoot West.

first appeared in Poetry and Places

City Driving in the Time of Monsoons by Luanne Castle

The SUV might have been first,
the sound of the very air cracking in two
panels, before and after--a young
girl spattered with shattered glass.
Saturday morning inched toward 
111 degrees, post- and pre- monsoon
at the border town between August 
and September. That’s where my drapes 
swell, pooling on the wood floor.
On that same morning, an almost empty 
bus became the second victim, then a car
near the mini-stack. Eleven shootings 
now and counting. On TV I’ve seen where
the shooter hid in tangled overgrowth
and behind industrial fencing. I hear fear
choking us in, drivers avoiding the I10,
changing plans. Assessing each other.
It’s the ambush that makes a sniper.
My drapes shrink, leaving no hiding place.
Who is to say when it began, an endless
stock of snipers during the monsoons.

Road Racing by Marilyn Windau
 
Taxis on the Caribbean island
of St. Lucia merit praise
from the Indianapolis 500 judges.
 
These drivers execute hairpin bends
with no regard to speed limits.
They pass trucks, other cars
blind to what’s ahead.
 
They drive on the left
as is their heritage from the Brits.
I look right, confused.
 
There are no “shoulders”,
surplus lanes to the side,
only storm water trenches.
One false move
and an axle is broken.
 
Tourists to this island
experience thrills
not unlike roller coaster rides
of their childhood days,
while their driver points out
local scenery.
 
I clasp the seatbelt,
my blood pressure rising.
I try to listen, try not to watch.
 
Staying alive becomes my ultimate goal.