How old were you when you learned to drive? Twelve or so if you grew up on a farm and learned to drive on the tractor. A man in our Memoir Class had a driving experience at the age of fourteen. That one took off the door of the family car. Not a good thing to do. My experience wasn't any better. I remember it well.

It was 1946 and I was fifteen. The war had been over for a year or so. Europe was in shambles. The U. S. Marshall Plan was rebuilding the war-torn cities. Business was starting up again as our men and women came home from the war. Automobiles were still hard to find. It took a while for the car manufacturers to resume production. “So what?” you might say. How did that affect me?

Well, it is at the heart of this story. My father found an old twelve cylinder Lincoln, a gunboat of a car, and fixed it up to drive. It was a monster of a car, had been black at one time but was then just a dull something-or-other. But it was big. They don't make twelve cyclinder cars anymore. It was a real gas guzzler. He didn't have it long, just long enough for me to crinkle a fender.

Dad had taken me out to our pasture field to give me driving lessons. I couldn't hit anything out there. But where was the challenge? Yes, I did learn how to start the car. That was simple enough. Pull out the choke knob on the dashboard about half an inch. Then with my left foot, step on the starter that was off to the side of the clutch petal on the floor. My right foot depressed the gas petal to the right of the brake petal. It was easy to tell the difference. The gas petal was shaped differently. Hey, I missed something there. If I hadn't depressed the clutch petal the car would lurch forward when the motor turned over. That's what we called it when the engine started up. Oh well, I lurched and stopped and lurched and stopped across that pasture field until I sort of got the hang of it. I certainly wasn't ready for the road.

No matter. Dad worked third shift at a factory in town, so he slept days. The key was left in the ignition. Who would want to steal an old twelve cylinder Lincoln? But then, who would know if I drove our family car down to the store? Temptation reared its ugly head. I responded by driving the car to the store at a quarter of mile away. (I could have walked there.) I did this several times with no mishap.

Since I only knew how to parallel park and there was seldom anybody else at this country store, I just pulled off the the side of the road. Then around the only block in town and back onto the main road and home. I hadn't learned how to back up at this point. Yes, I knew there was a reverse gear but hadn't found it yet. So what? I didn't need it. I went around the block.

There came a day when I did need it. As I turned one corner I saw up ahead that the road was blocked by two cars in front of a small garage a man had at his home. One car was at the side of the road facing me and the other car was stopped in my lane. No one was around. I depressed both the clutch and the brake petal, stopped the Lincoln and studied the situation. What to do? It looked like there was enough room for me to drive between them. I couldn't back up. There was no choice but to go forward. I took my foot off the brake, slowly let out the clutch and lurched forward. “BANG!” I hit the car at the side of the road. I stopped and started to cry. Mr. Riske and another man came rushing out to the road. I cried harder. Mr. Riske said, “There, there, don't cry. It's all right. We'll just pull the fender out.” They did and I continued on home, still in tears.

At home, when Dad got up, I told him what had happened. He went out and looked at our old monster of a car. No problem. He just pounded out the offending fender and it was almost as good as new. It would be a while before I tried driving again.

Did I mention there was no drivers ed at school? I learned the hard way in the pasture field and around that one block in our small town. How did you learn to drive?