Kind of wish I'd stuck to my bicycle longer before driving

The grandchildren are growing up. My how time flies.

This was recently evidenced by a grandchild signing up for driver’s ed classes.

The news catapulted me back in time to those days when I was learning how to drive over 50 years ago.

Was it that long ago?

It was that long ago.

I hear things are different here in the future. The classes, the driving, it’s all handled differently than way back when.

I hear there are fees and such, at least where grandchild lives.

Back in the early ’70s you just signed up for the course and the school system took care of everything: The course, the car, the student driving.

“McGee, hunh? I used to date your sister,” the teacher, a coach, said at the beginning of the course.

It was an alien concept to me. I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around this old guy dating my older sister.

He didn’t say anything more about that anymore anyway.

When it came time to get out of the classroom and into the student driving car it was me, three other guys and the coach tooling around the old hometown for an hour or two weekdays in the months before my 16th birthday.

And drive around is about all we did, each of us taking turns.

Coach spent his time having a gander at the women he saw along the way and making comments.

I can’t remember his comments and probably just as well. I know I wouldn’t be able to use them in this writing.

I know here in the future they’d be called “inappropriate.”

Very inappropriate.

Sundays my mom would ride along as I drove in the country.

Sometimes my grandmother would ride along with us.

I always remember Mom’s way of teaching me to be confident when it came to getting into busy traffic.

“Remember, ‘He who hesitates is lost,’” she would say.

My dad only took me out to drive three, maybe four times.

Dad’s way of urging me into traffic was different than Mom’s.

“GO! GO! GET OUT IN THERE! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, DANG IT!” he’d yell, except he didn’t actually say ‘dang,’ he said something else.

Soon I had my learner’s permit and, not much later, my driver’s license.

I was so excited.

I mean after all my buddy Catfish had his driver’s license as did a few other pals of mine.

Just days after getting my license I hopped in the ol’ family ’59 Cadillac two-door coupe on a mission to haul a bunch of my pals to a cross-town rivalry high school football game.

I had picked up my last passenger then hit the town’s four-lane main drag.

As I was tooling down the street I began to see something in my windshield that didn’t look quite right.

About the time I realized the double yellow line was on my right my pals blurted out, “YOU’RE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD.”

Looking back I kind of wished I’d slowed my headlong roll into adulthood by sticking to riding a bicycle and not bowing to that urge to drive.

Here in the future when I’m shooting the breeze with teenagers whose bicycles I’ve repaired I say, “Don’t wish away your youth, stick with your bicycle, wait a long time before you start driving.”

They look at me like I’m a crazy old man.

I probably would have thought the same thing at their age.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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