When I was younger and this one friend of mine and I would be doing something together one of us would say "VujaDe, I have the strangest feeling this has never happened before." That was a long standing joke. Now Mark and I break out in that joke for fun. Oh, the humor. I had a major DejaVu yesterday and I did not act the way my friend Vicky Wright did. I will explain. When I was 16 and had my driver's license a friend of the family Vicky (who was also a neighbor and had been a babysitter) said she would teach me how to drive a stick car. I lived in an area in Logan called the Island and one of the ways to get out of the island and downtown or up to the University is by going up the steep dugway, which is a steep, steep hill. You can ask anyone in Logan(that is from Logan) where the steep dugway is and they can tell you. It's been called that for as long as I can remember. Vicky decided in her old Volkswagen station wagon to have me drive up the steep dugway on my first time driving stick. Not smart. This is the same family that when my older brother was maybe around 12 was told by Vicky's mom to pull their car into the garage for her. My brother pulled it in and went right through the back wall of the garage. My mom was furious. Other things we've done to this family.I picked up a BB gun that my brothers and Vicky's brother's were playing with(I was 3)aimed it at Vaughn and shot him in between his eyebrow's. He still has a scar. I also shut their cats leg in the door and broke it. It had this little cast thing on for awhile. They still love us though. Back to my driving lesson with Vicky. I didn't hurt their car thank goodness. I did however get stuck in the middle of the steep dugway and had to put it in park and have Vicky drive it up the rest of the way. There was a long line of cars behind me honking and losing patience with me when I was trying to shift into 2nd. Vicky on the other hand was just laughing and not losing any patience at all. She never once got mad or said we should just go home. Maybe it's going with someone other than family that's the trick.
Jump ahead to yesterday to Kiah in the drivers seat of a used Volkswagen bug and me in the passenger's seat teaching her to drive stick. We live in a development that has hills, we live up on a hill so to get going anywhere you have to go up the hill and then go down the hill. Like me she got stuck in the middle of the hill when she went to shift into 2nd. Unfortunately there were all these neighborhood boys around, all about 9 years old and some we knew. They just stood there and watched and the crowd grew and grew. My nerves got more and more stressed and Kiah got more and more upset. I told her what to do but she started rolling backwards so I told her to put her foot on the break and she was yelling "I am putting my foot on the break" and then I was yelling "if you were putting your foot on the break, we wouldn't be rolling backwards." Again, the crowd of boys is still growing and Sofia and Miles are sitting in the back. Sofia was laughing and Miles was playing with a transformer and in his own little world. I was not like my friend Vicky. I was not calm, cool and collected. I did not act the way I wanted to or had pictured myself acting. It's funny now, but it wasn't so funny then. She put on the break and got out, we switched places and I drove up the hill. Just like Vicky had done for me 24 years ago yet in a much happier way. Kiah went on to tell me that she didn't want to learn how to drive stick from either Mark or I because we just get upset with her.
I do have to say that I'm the one that took her out driving in the expedition though for the first time on the roads and on the highway. She is a good driver, very safe, very cautious. It's just that whole clutch,break,gas thing. Mark came home later from meetings at church and took her out driving. She came back later feeling much better and she actually drove her car to school today. She's been driving my expedition to seminary and then to school and I've had her bug. I'm proud of her, I wasn't so proud of myself. Too bad Vicky doesn't live around here. She could teach all of my kids to drive.
3 comments:
Man it's tough teaching kids to drive. Seemed I was more patient with some than others. Not sure why. Kenny never liked driving with me in the car. :-) Good luck, my friend!
Oh the joys....I still don't know how to drive stick. And I'm ok with that :) Cute picture of Kiah, it was fun to see her perform at the game last week and at the parade for Salmon Days.
I remember trying to learn stick. My Dad took me out in our brand new car. I had driven a car 2 times.. not stick. I said what do I do to turn the corner he said just turn the corner... so, going 40, I turned the corner, never applying the clutch or break... he told me to pull over and my mom taught me how to drive stick. he he
She'll learn. It's funny how it all of a sudden clicks.
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