Who Taught You How to Drive!?
“YOU JUST DON’T BEAT UP ON A TRUCK LIKE THAT.” - MY DAD |
When he said this, I was piloting his 1988 Chevy Silverado, and I was maybe 13 years old. I know I was tall enough to push in the clutch, but didn’t possess the coordination to do that and avoid a good sized hole in the road at the same time, bouncing our lunch off the seat and onto the floor. I’d hit the hole while I was shifting from 1st to 2nd gear, out on one of those endless dirt roads south and east of Rock Springs, Wyoming, where I grew up.
I’d like to say that my dad wanted me to be a good driver, so he taught me early. That might be true to a degree, but I think the more likely priority for him was having someone drive his truck while he scouted Antelope from the passenger’s seat during that year’s hunting season. As noted above, it’s hard to shift and miss all the holes in the road at the same time, let alone do those things and be on the lookout for a half-dozen white and tan Prairie Goats against the white and tan landscape of snow and sand.
It should be said that my dad also made driving seem so cool. You could do things like tap out the rhythm of a Merle Haggard song on the radio if you put your left palm at the top of the steering wheel, and let your fingers span the gap to the dashboard. You needed your right hand to shift, so you had to get good at keeping up with quarter-notes using your non-dominant hand. Don’t even get me started on how cool it is to steer with your knee while you fish around a wax-paper bag for the last chicken wing, or pour hot coffee from a Coleman thermos into the lid that doubled as a cup. I wonder if he still has that old green metal thermos.
My dad had a way of making other things look cool too - like chopping wood for the fireplace that heated our home. In retrospect, I bet I looked anything other than cool when I was big enough to take on that job, but not big enough to fill out his XL leather gloves that hung comically from my skinny hands. I will tell you though, that the first time you split a log in one swing, and see each half shoot sideways as your axe buries itself in the stump below - that’s got to feel similar to playing guitar for the Rolling Stones in front of a stadium full of people, at least in my 12-year-old brain.
But back to learning to drive.
I don’t remember my dad actually teaching me the mechanics of driving. The things like clutches, steering, and the nuance of stopping on muddy dirt roads. What he said about taking care of the vehicle really stuck with me, though. It wasn’t just his stern tone when he told me to “be nice to the truck, it’s the only one we got,” it was the instant realization that it was a privilege to be driving his truck. The thing that got him to work at the coal mine east of town 5 days a week. It was what brought our food home those autumn afternoons of hunting, and the thing that allowed us to have heat in the winter, using it to haul logs after a dry summer day of felling and trimming trees north of town. The same logs I’d look like a clown trying to split in the backyard later on.
I guess that kind of is the point of learning to drive though. It’s not really the learning to drive that is so important, it’s the understanding that this shit is expensive, and it takes less effort to be nice to it, than to fix it if you don’t. My dad drove that truck through 500k miles, three transmissions, two engines, and god-knows-how-many oil changes, tire rotations, stuck thermostats, and failing fuel pumps. To say he got his money’s worth is an understatement, as I’m still getting his money’s worth of advice out of my own 1988 Toyota pickup to this day.
And if you came here to read this little story, wanting to come away with some driving tips, I made a solid list that my dad would approve of, and might even make you a better person.
Go easy on the clutch.
Use your blinker.
Brake before the turn, not during.
“Mama Tried” is the best Merle Haggard song to tap the dashboard to.
Thanks for reading, y’all.
-curt
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