I often see a “Student Driver” car going by our house. There was no such vehicle back in the ‘60s because Mt. St Joseph Academy, where I was a student, didn’t have a driving instructor.
During that era girls didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry to get their license. Boys were more eager but most of them didn’t have their own car to drive. The majority of families had only one car. This meant that the school parking lot was pretty empty.
But the time comes when parents are happy to end their job of “chauffeuring” and let their children drive themselves to various events.
I remember my mother asked me if there was any club that I didn’t belong to as it seemed she was always taking me and my friends to nighttime school meetings or events. She also commented that apparently nobody else’s mother knew how to drive! You know how it is, once you start something “the job is yours.”
Just about all of my friends were taught to drive by one of their parents. My husband, Peter, remembers his father having him practice shifting gears in their long driveway before venturing out into the streets of Plainfield, New Jersey.
I still didn’t have my license when I went to Trinity College in 1962. Students were not allowed to have a car on campus until their senior year. There was no incentive for me to get a license with that rule.
By 1964 my mother made an effort to teach me. Unfortunately, all I did was drive on the same road for multiple days. She would drive to the end of River Street, turn left at the bridge and pull over. We would switch seats. We had a 1962 Chevy Bel Air which was a large car equipped with standard shift. My driving lesson consisted of going back and forth to Wallingford on the Creek Road. When we got back to Rutland I would stop driving just before the River Street Bridge and we would switch places once again. My mother drove the rest of the way home.
That obviously wasn’t going to work out, as I needed to drive somewhere besides the Creek Road. But going on streets with traffic, hills and parallel parking were not on my mother’s “radar!”
Then along came 1965 and I knew that I would be student teaching the following year. I learned that I would do that at Proctor High School beginning in January of 1966. I knew that my mother couldn’t drive me to and from school as if I were an under-age student. I would be the laughing stock of the student body!
So the perfect solution was to hire Frankie Perry, who was a driving instructor. He was an easygoing man who gave me lessons in his car with automatic shifting. Mr. Perry was so easygoing that he would sometimes fall asleep while I was driving. Maybe he was just pretending but I didn’t want to wake him up so I picked my own streets to drive on. It seems like the radio was always playing “I am Henry the 8th, I am” as I drove on the streets of Rutland. Whenever I hear that oldie song I think of my driving lessons.
When Mr. Perry thought I was ready to take my driving exam he scheduled it and said he would pick me up and I would take the test in his car. He told me that after I got my license he would give me lessons on our standard shift car.
Well, panic set in and I called him and asked to cancel the exam and requested a few more lessons. He gave me two more lessons and told me I was “more than ready” so he scheduled the exam once again. I passed with flying colors and then the fun began. I got to drive our family car all over Rutland. When I came to a stoplight on a hill I bucked my way to flat terrain until I finally got the hang of it.
My father passed away before my student teaching began and my mother decided it was time for a small car with automatic transmission. Apparently it was my father who had really wanted a large car with standard shift.
A 1964 Chevy Nova was my mother’s choice. The timing was perfect as I could bring her to work and then drive to Proctor.
Not many kids want to wait until they are 21 before getting their license. But this “kid” did. I got my own car as soon as I graduated from Trinity. It was a Chevy Camaro and of course it had automatic transmission!
As I look back it’s pretty obvious that being able to take driver education in school would have made my life and my mother’s life a whole lot easier. The students who drive by our house don’t realize how lucky they are to have that option. Of course, the parents are equally lucky!
