Not Me
I’m a lousy driver. With this statement, I’m also an anomaly. Eight of ten American men rank themselves better than average behind the wheel. If I volunteer myself as below average, I must really suck.
Years ago, I fancied myself skilled. I planned my lane-changes for optimal efficiency, moving twice the speed of the stop-and-go traffic on Washington, DC’s major thoroughfares. On the highway, I anticipated traffic surges and stalls and easily out-paced the other cars around me. Once, while driving my coworkers to a restaurant across DC’s infamous Fourteenth Street Bridge, where the in-town secondary roads suddenly morph into an interstate super-highway, Sally Barkin blurted out “Whoa, Jeff, you’re a really good driver. Great timing, great flow.” I bubbled with pride over my superior driving skills.
Thirty years later…
Yesterday I got a late start on my drive to work. I strained my back… again… over the weekend while cleaning out my truck. I hadn’t even gotten to the vacuuming yet. I bent over to peer under the passenger seat and collect the random garbage scraps that accumulate there to start a new life—fast-food wrappers, soda cup lids, and receipts from my latest car repairs—and my back went crunch, crunch, crunch. I don’t think I actually heard the noise, but it happened slowly, the feeling so deliberate, I knew exactly what it sounded like beneath my skin.
My father-in-law summed things up perfectly later that evening when he came over for dinner, “For someone who spends so much time exercising, you sure injure your back a lot.” I’ve been moving slowly ever since.
Susan and Eli headed out to work yesterday at the usual time, around seven-thirty, and I putzed around for another half hour—not really doing anything, and not really doing nothing. When I finally left for work, the bus stop in front of my house was in full commotion.
When my children were young, they were the only kids in our neighborhood. The houses, built in the sixties and seventies, once harbored scads of kids. I know adults who grew up in my neighborhood. They tell stories of gangs roaming the streets with eggs and toilet paper looking for misdemeanors to commit. By the time we moved in, those kids of yore, my age or older, had families of their own. Their elderly parents spent their days sitting on their porches or waking around my block. They were all proverbial cheek pinchers. They gushed over Sophie and Eli as if they were an endangered species. Which, in my neighborhood, they were.
Now those seniors have all moved away or moved on. My neighborhood filled with young families over the past seven years. Every house has two or three grade-school kids. And they all descend on the corner in front of my house every morning at eight o’clock to meet the bus.
Back to my deficient driving skills. My problem stems from a lack of flexibility. Ever since a bicycle accident in 1995, my head doesn’t pivot fully on my neck. As I age, arthritic calcification makes the problem worse. In general, it’s hard for me to figure out what’s going on behind my pickup. Yes, I have a backup camera, but that only shows what’s directly behind me, not what’s coming from the sides. Once, after checking my camera, my mirrors, and up and down the road, I swung my car out of the driveway and put it in drive to head off on my journey. Dr. Dickey, the elderly veterinarian from around the corner stood directly in front of me straddling his bicycle in the middle of the street. He wore a look of pissed off incredulity. No matter how many times I check the road, it’s never enough.
As I attempted to head out to work yesterday, I put my pickup in reverse. A girl wandered behind my driveway heading to the bus stop. To avoid alarming the parents scattered about, I put my truck in park and waited. When the area cleared, I put it back in reverse, but more children appeared behind me. And then a father. And then two boys. And then that same girl as before as she ran back to her house next door to grab some forgotten item. And then back out and across my driveway once again. I contemplated killing the engine and heading back into my house.
When the action finally hit a lull, I went for it. I backed out of my driveway slowly, my windows down, my head swiveling back and forth scanning for any moving obstacles. Suddenly a man scolded his child to get out of the way. I hit the brakes and torqued my sore back to look completely behind my truck. Dammit! That same girl from before sat in the middle of the road fifteen feet behind my truck.
This morning, as Susan left the house, I still sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee and reading the news. She gave our common pre-work parting salutation “I’ll see you online,” and then added a cautionary question, “What time did you say that bus stop gets busy?”
Photo by Phinehas Adams on Unsplash
The Other Stuff 
With age, it just gets harder, and (brace yourself) the insurance rates go up when you reach 65. Anyway, with all those obstacles coming from behind, I would have been frustrated–and a little freaked out–too!
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Ugh. when I’m 65, eli will probably just be coming off our insurance. No break for the weary.
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Perhaps you need to become a “backer inner” so that your truck is facing out. Funny how our parents can sum up a situation with a one-liner that is unfortunately true, the nerve. Great writing.
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See my comment on backing in to DD. At the grocery store, I always park far from the entrance so I can ‘pull through’ the parking spot and be ready to drive out forward. Parking lots is where I have my most trouble.
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I love the line ‘I knew exactly what it sounded like beneath my skin’.
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re driving, I’m sure there is a reason why you are not backing in at night so you can drive out forward in the morning.
Luckily, we have a driveway up the side of the house to a concrete backcourt, and I can drive in forward and turn around at the back, ready for the morning.
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Sigh. It’s laziness that keeps me from backing in. Also, the notion that a white, male, pennsylvanian, pickup truck driver backing into his driveway is so expected, it’s essentially a meme.
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In Australia (or at least around here), it’s a small minority who drive forward out of their driveway. Maybe try to think of yourself as an honorary Aussie next time you baulk at backing in – a proud nonconformist.
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In Illinois (where I live), on your 75th birthday, you’re required to take a road test. I have no car, haven’t driven in 10 years, and prior to that every time I got behind the wheel I bumped or scraped something — fortunately no little girls. If I happened to make my way to the freedom of a highway, I’d get caught speeding –I have absolutely no control over the gas pedal. I turned 75 during covid and the DMV waived my license expiration for two years. A few weeks ago, with those roadblocks before me including the unshakable delusion that I’m a good driver, I gave up my license. It dawned on me I don’t even need an I.D. anymore, because the last time I traveled in 2018, I had my first-in-life panic attack at Washington National so, of course, I’ll never fly again.
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National airport is a panic attack waiting to happen. Susan and I flew out of there a couple of months ago and the gates were so crowded, that I felt claustrophobic. I’d love to be completely done with cars. I really don’t enjoy driving at all, but my desire to live in rural areas sort of requires that I drive or I live a very small life. I worry about whether I’ll be a safe driver 10 – 15 years from now. My current trend makes it seem doubtful.
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Jeff, I enjoy your writing and “drive”. Arrggg, I can relate to the “crunch” sound in bones (I had a motorcycle accident at 36) and I’m a YOUNG 53. But my neck and back do not cooperate (now the cancer is there so there’s that). I giggled reading this although it’s not a laughing matter. Yep, just go back in and drink more coffee!
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Well, we need to be able to laugh at ourselves. I used to think I was ‘young for my age’ but my age seems to be catching up with me over the past few years. I’m sorry about your cancer. It’s a concern that nags at me frequently. Scary stuff.
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Thank you, Jeff. I’m sorry for you, too. I’m feet good at laughing at myself! 🤭😂
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Another great post, and a real treat for me as I survive my first week of fall classes. Your post appeared last night just after our internet came back on at the house. Double good news! I didn’t have to read it on my phone.
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You’ve been without internet all this time? I hope you at least had electricity. Every time I think about you teaching writing classes, I wish I could somehow enroll in one. I think it’s going to have to wait until retirement (and relocating to a new community). I’m not so crazy about taking an online course. I’m not a big fan of reading posts on my phone either. My brain doesn’t seem to work the same way on my phone as it does when looking at my laptop.
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We had power, thankfully, but we were without internet for a week.
I’m not a fan of online courses, either. Especially for writing courses, a good workshop requires live interaction between the class members.
Now that my first week of classes is almost over, I’m looking forward to writing again. I don’t want to lose my momentum.
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Looking forward to your instruction AND your creative writing.
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I know it’s no comfort, but for what it’s worth, you’re not alone, Jeff.
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I’m sure I’m not. Might be a little comforting.
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Hi Jeff. I picked a fun article pop back on WordPress.
Driving! Oh boy. We’re at the point where neither my husband or I can handle the other’s driving. But…we’re not so wild about our own driving either!
Recently, my old 2012 Mazda 5 mini-minivan was in the shop. The dealers loaned me a fully loaded new Mazda with every safety feature I didn’t know existed. Of course it had a back up camera and blind spot monitoring. My husband’s car has those, so I was used to them. But, it also had a front facing camera that kicked on as soon as my rear facing camera kicked off in a parking lot. It also like to focus on the tennis ball hanging my garage to help me monitor how far to pull in. And of course I heard beeping for every unknown transgression. What did I do now? I think all of that was more distracting then helpful.
Glad you navigated your morning departure without any mishaps. It’s definitely worth checking out school bus schedules.
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Hey, we had a 2012 Mazda 5 for years. I loved that car. We drove it so hard it actually broke down on our way to trading it in for a newer car.
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