Here’s what I remember of 1980: It was the year Robin Williams dressed in a fetching red jumpsuit as Mork from Ork, the Rolling Stones toured the world and I learned to drive.
My mom’s car was a purple VW Dasher, a forgettable and gutless hatchback with manual transmission and the sex appeal of Newt Gingrich.
Our Pontiac Grand Prix, on the other hand, came with the following disclosure: “Anything you do to your father’s car, he will do to you.”
Easy choice.
In my hometown of San Francisco, a “Student Driver” sticker that adorned the rear window was treated the same as a pace car at Indianapolis — you got one courtesy lap before the squealing pack cut you off.
Another challenge was parallel parking on hills so steep that the sidewalks had stairs.
I remember popping the clutch on such a hill, rolling backward and hearing my mom invoke the blessings of the patron saint of fornication, if you catch my drift.
Braking lessons followed.
The years, the dings and the crashes came and went until 1994. It was the year Robin Williams exchanged his jumpsuit for a plaid skirt as Mrs. Doubtfire, the Rolling Stones toured the world, and my new baby boy rested quietly in the palm of my hand.
Holding this squishy pink extension of myself, I did not think ahead to the milestones and speed bumps on the road of our lives, which appeared the next day in the hospital parking lot as I simultaneously fought with a deceptively stubborn infant car seat and gave my newborn son his first lesson in cursing.
Fast forward past poopy diapers, Barney and puberty, to 2009, and Robin Williams has resumed his role as a man, the Rolling Stones tour the world and my little baby boy is learning to drive.
Only he’s not so little anymore.
He first sat down in the driver’s seat of my wife’s car with a self-conscious grin, which spread as he unfurled his long legs, and he moved the seat back — and back. He pushed that seat all the way to 1980, and the car became a gutless VW Dasher, whose driver veered over fog lines, forgot to stop at stop signs and could not stop grinning.
Back in the present, it was my son behind the wheel of his mother’s gutless Toyota, and what had brought a crazy grin to my face now made me yearn to embrace the airbag, every time we approached an intersection.
There were moments in our first drive when I squeezed the leather armrest hard enough to make it moo. How did my mother do this?
Weeks passed, and my son, though he never said so, was undoubtedly eyeballing my car, a sporty little SUV. Unlike my father, I had no retribution clause attached to it, but I found it very difficult to hand over the keys.
I like my car. It takes me to really nice places to meet really nice people and eat their food. My car is my kingdom, the driver’s seat my throne, but fear not, my minions, for I am a benevolent ruler.
I digress.
My son’s driving kept improving, and I resolved to let him drive my car. On our way home one day, I abruptly pulled over to the shoulder, handed him the keys and got in the passenger seat. He sat down in my seat — sorry, the driver’s seat — and looked at me.
“Ready?” my son said.
“Yes,” I said confidently, for him.
“And no,” I said silently, for me.
Print
E-Mail