Driving (now and then)

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It’s two and a half miles to Whole Foods, but you can encounter any number of bad and potentially lethal drivers along the way. Texting moms in SUVs trying to make up for a late start. People who think there’s some grace period after the light turns red. Bounders who interpret all pavement as part of their lanes.

“Do you watch how people drive?” I say.

“Yeah.”

She’s focused on her iPod.

“This is a great opportunity. Pay attention now and you’ll be way ahead when you start driving.”

“Um hm.”

I try to start things early with her. From the first diaper change, getting that restless little body into a onesie. “Left arm,” I’d say, slipping the sleeve over. “Right arm.”

“This guy who just cut us off: yakking on his cell phone, no signal.”

“I know, Dad. Coma, broken back, you almost died.”

“Because someone wasn’t paying attention.”

Part of our abstract family lore, like my dad’s stories about Guadalcanal. Interesting, but meaningless until there’s some proximal experience. “Don’t touch that, it’s hot” was just a challenge until she saw what happened when her friend placed a hand flat on a burner. “Honey, this is why we tell you not to do some things.” It worked for a while: her friend’s visits to the hospital, the oozing burn, the bandages, her obvious discomfort and contrition. There was a temporary suspension of disbelief about our having her best interests at heart.

The onset of puberty, though, seemed to fill her with contempt (for us) and self confidence.

I didn’t want her to have to experience the destruction of an auto accident first hand, though, to understand the wisdom of becoming a good driver. Sitting in the backseat in what amounts to a leather sofa on wheels, bathed in surround sound, doesn’t suggest any sense of what can go wrong. It shouldn’t. A kid should feel safe with her parents.

In the era before seatbelts, my parents’ car was my playground. In our Olds 98, I could walk around in the back seat. I could stand back there, feet on the floor, arms folded across the top of the front seat, and watch the colors on the speedometer change the faster we went. Somewhere around 100 it turned red. Never when my mom was in the car, but whenever it was just my dad and I and he could find some unoccupied stretch of road.