My son gets his (driving) wings

Today's driving schools for teenagers are a far cry from an older cousin taking on the teaching duties.

|
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Jackson Thorn steers his dad's van around the circle where they live in Massachusetts.

The driving age in Maine is much too low – 15, for crying out loud. In New Jersey, where I grew up, the driving age was – and still is – a more sane 17. Be that as it may, my 15-year-old son, Anton, finally wore me down. I dutifully enrolled him in a local driving school and hoped for the best as I slackened the tether another length on my baby boy.

Well, at least it's a driving school. I recall, on my 17th birthday, leaping out of bed and seemingly straight into the driver's seat of my dad's '68 Chevelle. No driving school for me! The modus operandi in Jersey was to have a family member do the dirty work of teaching a kid to drive. In this case it was my cousin Ritchie, four years my senior and already breathing the rarefied air of a 21-year-old.

There I sat, bewildered behind the wheel, with Cousin Ritchie right next to me, one arm hanging out the window. "Well?" he finally said, checking his watch. "What are you waiting for? Start 'er up!"

I had never started a car before. While Cousin Ritchie drummed his fingers on the door frame I tried one key after another from my dad's key chain. "C'mon, c'mon," said Cousin Ritchie. "I ain't got all day."

Finally locating the right key, I sat back, turned to Cousin Ritchie, and asked, "Now what?"

My cousin ran his hand down his face. "C'mon! C'mon! Start 'er up!"

I think I've made my point that I knew nothing about driving a car. When I finally did get the car started and in gear under Cousin Ritchie's hectoring, I was amazed to find that it inched forward without so much as my touching the gas. "Let's go! Let's go!" ordered Cousin Ritchie. "Step on it!"

I did as I was told – and we lit off like a jet on afterburners, jerking back against the seat as the car raced into my future as yet another denizen of the legendary highways of New Jersey. To make a long story short, I did 10 hours behind the wheel with Cousin Ritchie. I thought I had improved considerably during that time – my cousin's only consistent lament was that I drove too slowly. When Cousin Ritchie alighted from the Chevy after the last lesson, he looked at me, shook his head, and said – and here I must use the vernacular to communicate the mood – "Ya gotta yuze da gas!"

My son was spared the experience – perhaps "trauma" is a better word – of having a Cousin Ritchie for a driving instructor. A couple of weeks back, when I took him to the drop-off point for his first behind-the-wheel lesson, a perfectly respectable young man in a Volkswagen rolled up, introduced himself, and helped Anton accommodate himself in the driver's seat. I watched as my son secured his seat belt and checked his mirrors. And then, slowly, but with clear deliberation, he pulled away.

I couldn't help but look after him. I had the sense of standing on the shore of some great ocean, my son a captain of his own ship. As I watched and pondered, the great vessel began to move away from the familiar land that had nurtured my boy and seen him grow into a fine, independent young man. I was waving to him, but he was too intent upon his duties to notice, because running a ship is an all-encompassing chore. Before long he had disappeared over the horizon.

That's as it should be, of course. The act of driving, of wanting to drive, is not so much a mechanical need to have a powerful machine at one's command as it is an unvoiced statement from the child, who is saying, "Hey, Dad, look at me! I can't look at you because I have to keep my eyes on the road, but please watch me."

I am watching. It's the least I can do, because the art of this type of leave-taking is to do the least, keep my mouth shut, and hope that my son fares well on the open seas.

With all due respect to Cousin Ritchie.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to My son gets his (driving) wings
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2012/0105/My-son-gets-his-driving-wings
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe