Driving Lesson

This picture may conjure up good memories for a lot of people but as for me, I am reminded  of my first driving lesson.  It also reminds me of my family in the 1970's and our seemingly endless treks back and forth across the southwestern part of the United States in search of the all mighty dollar.  We used to travel (A LOT) when I was younger.  Not for fun or vacation, although sometimes those things found their way to us, but for work.  My stepfather, Sonny, was a welder and he followed the money and we followed him.  

 

On one of these moves we were in  the middle of the desert in Arizona driving from Texas to California in our typical formation:  Sonny driving a U-Haul truck packed with our belongings with my little brother beside him and the rest of us following in the family car and trying to keep up.  At the time, the family car  was an old Pontiac station wagon with  my mom driving and me in the passenger seat and my two younger sisters in the back AND it just so happened that on this trip we were pulling a 13 foot travel trailer packed floor to ceiling with the stuff that would not fit in the U-Haul.  All of a sudden my mom started getting sick to her stomach....I mean REALLY sick.  We were driving along about 60 mph and trying to keep up with Sonny and my mom was swerving back and forth trying not to toss her cookies.  We did not know exactly where we were going, and we were losing sight of Sonny as Mom slowed down trying to keep the swaying trailer under control and trying to calm my crying 8 & 9 year old sisters.  This was the mid 70's, way before cell phones and we were not going to be able to catch up to Sonny and we did not know when he might look back to see if we were still there, so my mom made an executive decision.  "Here", she said, "Take the wheel".  Say what??  I was 13 and had never driven a car in my life.  "Take the wheel!!" she repeated.  So I took it and while pulling that trailer and with two little girls (3 if you include me) scared out of their wits and in the middle of the desert, trying to catch up with a speeding U-Haul, I slid over as my mother scrambled for the passenger seat and a McDonald's bag to throw up into.  We managed to make it to the next rest stop where Sonny had pulled over to wait for us after realizing we were not behind him.  Actually, I was quite excited to share the story now that I had a few miles under my belt.  That was the end of my driving, at least on that trip, and after we rested for a while and my mom felt well enough to take back control of the car we went on our way.  After that day Mom said that she did not worry about teaching me to drive because she knew if I could keep that car on the road under such crazy conditions, I could probably drive in normal conditions without batting an eye.