July has been a month of what seems like nothing but travel. I think I might possibly be caught up on my sleep. Some of the travel has been more of the time variety than distance. Time travel is exhausting, especially when you are going backward instead of forward. Time travel is also not all that conducive to knitting as knitting is one of those activities that tends to keep one focused on the present. I will admit that of all the things that happened in July, it was good to heal one trauma from my teenage years.
In Argentina the legal driving age is 18. So, when I was there, I was unable to drive anywhere but the Baptist camp my family visited twice a year for an administrative meeting. My dad, brave soul that he is, determined that I should at least learn the basics of driving so I wasn’t completely unable to drive when we got back to the States.
Like most teenagers, I had lots of fantasies about driving. Driving was so completely cool. To be completely cool while driving, you had to have the right sunglasses – preferable Ray Ban Wayfarers - listen to some Rock and Roll, and have the windows rolled down on a summer afternoon. This was the fantasy.
The reality is that no one is very cool when they are sixteen driving a turd brown, Ford Falcon whose only redeeming quality is that is a stick shift and has a cassette deck (For those of you who are too young to remember when Reagan was president, cassette decks were THE thing to have in your car. Cassette tapes are kind of like CD’s in that they have music on them with the adventure of the possibility of being eaten by your cassette player, causing the magnetic tape inside the cassette being vomited out of your player.).
I got ready for one of my driving lessons. I was sitting in the car waiting for my dad. I had some sunglasses on – not Ray Bans, but that was a minor detail. I had the music on – low so I would know I was cool, but low enough that my dad didn’t hear it. I was ready. Now, one thing that completely destroys coolness - this is important because it is a point that many people overlook -is incompetence. You do not look cool taking a curve too wide and nearly wiping out an evergreen tree, but succeeding in getting the antenna all bent up by the branches, getting your dad so mad that he ends the lesson early and has to go lay down in a dark room with a cool rag on his head, and feeling embarrassed that your fantasy of coolness is now going to sound like a really lame reason for having turned on the music in the first place that you feign complete, utter stupidity by repeatedly uttering “I don’t know” to any and all interrogations.
This incident in itself would not have been so bad if it was not the precursor to the entire “Kimberly is a crap driver” phase of my life. Not that this was not partially earned by a major wreck within 6 months of getting my license, but 20 years is a long time to remember one wreck. Granted, the damage to the car was bad enough that I thought that the hammer my dad took out to the car to hammer out a “ding” in the bumper might actually go flying through the front windshield.
All of this history made me a bit apprehensive about telling my parents I was renting a car to go to a funeral in Western Kentucky with my dad and then up to Hodgenville to see my cousin who is in from Japan. I like driving, especially a sporty model with some zoom.
We got up early and started out. Dad talked and I drove. The drive was pleasant, except for the minor detail of renting a car without cruise control. We made it to Western Kentucky without incident. After the post-funeral lunch, we headed up to Hodgenville. We arrived without incident, although going the back way up some winding roads with plenty of blind hills and curves was a bit nerve wracking, especially with Dad giving the real estate report. I finally had to decide to focus on the driving and interject an “Oh.”, “I didn’t know that.” Or “That’s interesting” at intervals to not be rude.
While my dad talked with my aunt and uncle, my cousin and I escaped to Starbucks to sit and talk over coffee. My cousin and I have several things in common. At times I have wondered if we have lived past lives in Paris, because we are both such devotees of the café and salon culture. We try to get together when he is here so we can get caught up with each other. He tells me about Japan, how much he loves his job, and his travel to nearly every country in Europe and most of Asia. Through the years, we have spent many an afternoon this way. Unfortunately, the time is always too short and we had to go back to Louisville.
In one weekend I drove nearly 600 miles – all in-state. My dad did not seem to have a heart attack from my driving, although at one point on the way home, I thought he had died from a massive stroke until I heard him snore.
No comments:
Post a Comment