the day i DIDN'T get my drivers license

i have often heard the question asked, "if you could go back in time and change some things, what would you change?" and of course, everyone has alot of things they would probably do different, but one thing in particular always stands out in my mind. because it happened to be one of the most humiliating moments of my life. and there have been MANY, but maybe this one was particularly bad because i was a 16 yr. old girl. from a very small town. where everybody knew everybody. and when things out of the ordinary happen in small towns, word spreads, like wildfire.



when i turned 15, it was time for me to start learning how to drive. daddy was the manager of the sugar refinery and our house was one of two that actually sat on the refinery property. we lived a few miles outside of town, down a long road that was bordered on one side by a canal and the other by sugar cane fields. i had an older brother and sister, who had already flown the coop and two younger sisters, and mama was not real fond of teaching me how to drive with most of her offspring in the car, so she left that job up to daddy. on the weekends, when the refinery would shut down, and the parking lots were empty, he and i would drive over there and i would practice my driving skills. now the company car was a hearse. not really, it was a big ol' yellow station wagon, but to a teenage girl, being seen in that car in front of your friends was comparable to carrying around a dead body. your own. because it was like dieing a slow death...of embarrasment.


anyway, there were some ramps over at the refinery that the forklifts would drive up and down and it was on these ramps that daddy tried to teach me about the fine art of judging distances. now, i don't know if he didn't teach me well, or if it was just that i didn't learn it well, but for the life of me, i could not judge distances. i was always too far away from the side, or way too close. i think those ramps were my first inclination that i would grow up to be claustrophobic; (fear of being in small spaces.) one day we had been over there practicing for awhile and i think he must have been frustrated with me and had more than likely gotten on to me about something, because when i pulled back up to the house i would normally have gotten out of the car and let him drive it into the garage. but on this day, he told me to do it. and i panicked. it was a double car garage and mama's car was already parked on one side, which meant parking in very tight quarters. too tight, if you asked me. but, daddy didn't ask me. he told me. to park the car in the garage. and i tried to remind him that i hadn't yet mastered the skill of judging distances. but you didn't talk back to daddy. so i put my foot on the gas, barely, and then slammed on the brake. and then the gas, and then the brake. and then the gas a little harder, and before i knew what happened, i had pulled too close to the left side and ran the car up the side of the garage door frame, taking off the door handle on the way in. and i remember crying and saying, "i told you the garage wasn't big enough for this car, and he told me that he had always managed to get in there with no problem. daddy didn't want to teach me too often, after that little episode.


when i turned 16 i had already gone through drivers education at school, daddy decided to let someone else have a hand in training me and i had studied that driving manual and knew it inside out. i was prepared. now, in clewiston, the small town where we lived, you could only get your license on one day of the week. so, anyone that had a birthday during that week had to wait until that day. and i believe it was on a friday. we pulled up to the tag office, where you took your test, in mama's car, which was another humongous car, a lincoln continental. that was one of the downsides to having a large family. you had to drive large cars. and be seen in them in front of your friends. i was excited about finally getting to drive on my own, and some of my friends were there to get their licenses too. we were like a little cheering squad for each other. there were also a lot of other people there, doing things like getting tags, or paying taxes or seeing the sheriff about one thing or another, because all of this was done in the same building.


i went in and took the written portion of the test and then waited outside with the rest of my friends to take the driving portion. they took you alphabetically, by last name, and my last name was willis, so i would be one of the last ones. which was fine by me, because i was more than a little nervous about the parallel parking. when my turn finally came, there was just me and moody left. the one boy out of the entire school, who if i had been able to choose one person that i would not want watching me take my driving test, it would have been moody. without question. he was the kind of boy that was always happy, always a jokester, and he was popular. he had already taken and passed his test, but decided he would stick around and be my cheerleader since everyone else had already taken the test and gone home. with their independence in their wallet.

the lady officer came out and got in on the passenger side of the car, with her little clipboard. i got in the drivers seat and was so aware of her watching me. to see if i would put my seatbelt on. and if i checked the mirrors and adjusted them, and if my hands were at the proper 10:00 and 2:00 positions. she was making her little check marks in all the boxes and i got real nervous. really fast. this lady was scaring me. and i looked up and there was moody, with a big grin on his face, cheering for me to "go girl!" i cranked up that big ol' car and i turned around to the back to check to see if there were any cars coming and i remember clearly that lady officer telling me to back out slowly. we were parked with a car on either side of us. i took my foot off the brake and eased it over to the gas pedal and put a little pressure on it, all the while turning the steering wheel all the way to the right. and then my foot just pressed down a little too hard and i got scared, and i backed aaaaaallll the waaaaaay down the side of the car on my left. oh, the grinding noise. between that and the sound of the lady officer screaming at me....i got even more scared and i put that car in drive and went aaaaaallll the waaaaaay back up the car. and it wasn't just any old car. it was a POLICE CAR! i looked up and saw moody, just bent over at the waist, laughing his head off. his face was so red i thought he was going to blow a gasket and keel over right there on the sidewalk. that lady officer got out of the car and told me to follow her and she was babbling about something or other, when my mother walked right up to her, and i will never forget, as long as i live, what my mother said next. she actually said to that lady officer, "does this mean she doesn't get her license?" and that lady officer, in the loudest voice possible, i'm sure they heard her over in the next county, said, "SHE JUST HIT A PARKED VEHICLE!!!! NO, SHE DOESN'T GET HER LICENSE!!! i could have died right then and there. between her and moody, i don't know which was worse. knowing that i would be the laughing stock at school the next week or knowing i would have to get back in the car with that lady again the next week!


turns out...going to school on monday was worse. by then, everybody in town had heard and i was the brunt of many, many jokes. it was probably the headlines for that weeks newspaper, i don't remember. but, when i went back the next week to try again, i prayed that none of my friends would be there, just in case i had another "experience." that lady officer saw me coming and she refused to get back in the car with me. she went and got somebody else to ride with me and i passed the second time around. i gained my independence, finally, but by the time i did, i was too nervous to drive for awhile and to this day my stomach knots up when i see a police car.


on the bright side....many years later, when my own boys would hear of this story, they thought it was pretty cool that their mother had hit a police car while taking her driving test. and me? that was only the beginning of "unusual" things i would hit with my car. i will share some of those other things in a later post.

so, if i had a chance, i would go back and change that day. i would have parked the car in a different place when we first got there. with wide open spaces on either side. and i would go on a day when i knew that moody wouldn't be there. and i would have tried to borrow a smaller car to take the test in.

my three boys are all grown up now. the youngest got his drivers license a year ago. and i thank God that i don't have to go through another teenager learning to drive. God is still working with me on the judging distances thing. thirty five years later and i still haven't mastered that. maybe by the time i'm 70 yrs. old i will have it downpat. i'll pray for that anyway.