January 25, 2011

    He may be grounded for the rest of his life.  While practicing for the driver's test, he ran  over the family rooster.  I empathized, because although, now,  a reasonably good driver,  I did not begin my driving career at all auspiciously.

      When I was fifteen, Daddy  bought me a nineteen fifty five Ford, painted it baby blue and installed an air conditioner. I loved that car. He gave me the keys and told me that I could practice driving around the back field until I was fifteen and a half and could  get my learner's permit.  I never ran down  a rooster, but I did scare the neighborhood dogs real bad. Even Mr. and Mrs. Thompson's bad dog, Mugsy, took off when he saw me heading out with my car keys.

    It did not get much better right away as I the driver's test twice before getting lucky on the third time out.  The first time I didn't even get out of the parking lot because I pulled away from the curb before the examiner was all the way in the car. Thank heaven,  he didn't trip and fall under the car.

    There was the time, while showing off to my cousin, Karen, I took the corner by Billie's Drug on two wheels.  As it happened, Billie, himself, was standing on the front stoop just as I rounded the corner. He picked up the phone , called my dad who was waiting at the corner by my Uncle Raymond's feed store. Daddy  took the car, the keys and left Karen and me to walk the rest of the way to our respective homes. I was on foot for two weeks over that.

    As I write this, I am reminded of how things  have changed.  It would never have occured to Billie not to call my Dad.  It would never have occurred to me to deny that Billie , of course, saw what he saw.  Obviously,  if I had been so stupid as to take that tone, I may not be here writing about it.    All the parents looked after all the kids. Today, all too often, people take their kids' side of an argument when everyone else involved knows that kid needs to be reined in.  Well, for what it 's worth, I was definitely reined in. 

   Once, while I was in college, Daddy sent me back to school in his fishing station wagon.  I can't remember why.  Probably, mine was out of commission.  Anyway, at the Oklahoma City end of the Turner Turnpike, I was in line to pay the toll.  Blinded by the sun, I rear-ended the car in front of me.  Daddy called my dorm room, said 'Park it!' and hung up.  I parked it. 

   Not long after that, having been forgiven and had my Ford returned to me, Mother called.  When  I came home for the weekend, I was to go into downtown Oklahoma City  and pick up my Aunt Verma.  A resident of California, my Aunt Verma never, ever, I don't think,  left the house unless she was dressed to meet royalty. She had been in town  to attend   a Methodist Preacher's Wives Conference.  I pulled up,  torn jeans, bleached blonde hair,car belching black smoke, and  my Aunt was standing there in a gorgeous cashemere coat with a matching little hat.  One of her friends, obviously concerned  for my Aunt's safety, ran up, 'Verma, Verma, we're going through Tulsa.  We would love to drop you off at your sister's house,' a worried,  side long glance at me

   My aunt,  always, always polite, smiled a big smile and said, 'Oh no, I'll be fine. This is Sally, my nephew, Russell's girl. I am so looking forward to the ride so we can visit.' 

   And, off we sputtered.  Keep in mind this was not too long after the rear-ending incident with the station wagon.  In those days, you  exited the Turner Turnpike in Brookside  and took Peoria Avenue  all the way to Turley.  We got to Tulsa right in the middle of evening traffic and were slowly, slowly inching up Peoria when   we heard this tremendously loud crash as someone rear ended someone else a few cars back.  I darn near jumped right out of the car. All I could think was that somehow, someway, I had hit someone, and Daddy would have me walking for the rest of my life. 

   Aunt Verma  laughed all the rest of the way to Turley, and when we stopped by Daddy's garage for him to say hi, she said, 'Russell, I do think you've got your daughter properly in awe of you."  And laughed some more.  Daddy didn't crack a grin. Just looked at me.

   I was not, by any means, the worst driver in our family.  There were a couple of others who would have been in  line for that prize.  First would have to be my Aunt Georgia, Aunt Verma and my Grandmother's sister.  That woman drove that nineteen fifty Plymouth as though she were auditioning for a spot on NASCAR.  She would take those  back roads up to my Grandmother's house at no less than forty or fifty miles an hour, singing hymns at the top of her lungs.  Guess Jesus heard her, cause she died, peacefully,  in her bed, not in a ditch off North Quincy Avenue.   Once , while pulling out of the driveway at our  house, she rammed the front gate. The gate flew up, the hinges froze causing the thing to stop,  stuck  frozen in mid-air at a forty-five degree angle. My dad refused to fix it.  Said he wanted Aunt Georgia to see it there, every time she came to visit.

   My Uncle Jean was another one who was lucky not to kill himself in a car accident.  He drove way too fast.  When they invented those regulators that would beep if you went over a pre-set speed limit, my Aunt Skeet made him get one installed on his car and had  it set at sixty.  He and I were driving someplace.  Oklahoma City?  Texas?  I can't remember, but the entire trip that regulator beeped and beeped and beeped.  As we drove, he kept mumbling to himself.  And would hit that accelerator again. 

   "Why don't you just take it out?" I asked.
   "Cause I'd rather listen to that blankety blank beep than to your Aunt."

    If he were still here, he'd empathize with the kid who killed the rooster, too.

                                                                  A picture of where I'm living now. Note the baseball field behind my place. Come baseball season, I'll be able to watch the games from my patio.