Bill LevineMEETING IT HEAD ONI can swerve around tasks compromised by my NLD, except for the dangerous one that's an everyday essential
On a sunny spring day in 2014 that seems to beckon "Get in the Camero, put the top down and hit the open road," I slide into our Toyota Highlander bound for Villanova, PA. to pick up our son Matt. According to my wife, Lesley, I need good weather and God's help to make the trip without being a serious road hazard. A few days ago, tired of my dicey driving, she said with a mixture of anger and concern. "I don't want you taking the Highlander. I don't trust you. You need to rent a car." Ok, I'll go to Enterprise and tell them I need a van to crash. Lesley's flamboyant reaction to my impending trip was probably wrapped up in day to day marital strife, but I had to admit that the meat of it was my driving, which was not getting better as I headed towards senior citizenship. Her concern was mostly my tentativeness. When two roads diverge at odd angles, I have a hard time deciding which one to travel on. "You can't stop in the middle of the road, you'll get in an accident" is her back seat driver mantra. But her exasperation is probably a culmination of 30 years of missed turns, abrupt stops, heading east instead of west and infinite looping in public garages. I admit I have spent too much camped in the no-man's land of striped highway merge lanes and re-circling rotaries to warrant much confidence. As I pull onto the highway bound for Villanova, I wish that I had brought my friend Lee with me. That was Lesley's final suggestion that I nixed. But now with 300 miles of driving pitfalls ahead, maybe I should have enlisted him as a co-pilot. After all, I am getting older, and five or six hours of driving with road hazard to middling level skills is a long haul and maybe not that safe. But really what is more intimidating is the fear of racking up personal bad driving points, like missed turns and especially ill-conceived lane changes. Yet I the spirit of either Kerouac or the Donner Party, I pull out of driveway and hit the road. * * * It is 4 hours later on my trek to Villanova, and I am slurping a messy tuna sub in the food court of the Richard Stockton rest area off the NJ turnpike. Appropriately, Jersey names their rest stops after native heroes because I'm feeling, if not actually heroic, at least solidly reliable. In this regard I am in harmony with my fellow road warriors in the food court. We all look rather pedestrian now, me struggling to ingest the tuna salad without sliding off my mouth, the others struggling with cranky kids to truly eke out a McDonald's happy meal. But we are intrepid out on the Jersey Pike. We ignore the possibility that the next passing on the left could be our last pass, or at least elicit the bird from an irate driver. We are cool and collected at 85 mph. Well OK, and I am at least not sweating at 75. Indeed, for the past 200 odd miles from Belmont to the Richard Stockton no one has honked me when I changed lanes. That I wasn't honked surprised me. No lane change for me is instinctual, even after 45 years of driving. Unless the left lane is empty for as far as I see, my compromised spatial abilities never gives me a 100% green light on lane changing so I am always edging over with a bit of yellow caution light. Sometimes this uncertainty makes me back off the lane switch, eliciting frustrated comments from family like "come on you can go" or "stop being indecisive." I feel that I need to be indecisive. Too decisive might be dangerous. This seems to be borne out in long trips, where inevitably I do get the scary honk from one lane over, indicating I am attempting a dangerous maneuver. But so far on this trek to Nova, I am pitching a perfect game—no lane changing honks. After finishing my tuna sub I go out into the rest stop parking area car clicker a blazing. I need the crutch of my Highlander's remote to find my car, as the clicker will flash the rear lights. I walk to about the approximate distance where I think I parked. Now I look left and right for the light flashing. A few rows over a car lights up. The remote has saved me from some wandering of biblical proportion to track down my car. Of course my being completely lost around cars just didn't start yesterday. Like acne, dating bewilderment and athletic mediocrity, inept car operation was a major scourge of an unhappy and prolonged adolescence. The bad news, came appropriately enough at the Cleveland Circle reservoir, as I was a student of Cleveland Circle Driving School. I was a high school junior. It was 1967 and I was about to receive an un-groovy assessment. "You need 12 more lessons, you're not ready for a road test yet," said my driving instructor, sitting in the dual control, power seat of the cheap compact. His words stung. I would not be launched on the independence highway at age 16.5 as I had expected. I would have to delay sneaking out of the cafeteria to lead expeditions for the perfect Italian sub. When would I be able to share driving to the Framingham movies on the four lane suburban sprawl that was Route 9. Maybe not for a long time I thought. Already the couple of lessons on less than autobahn strength highways had intimidated me. Calibrating the safe time and space window for lane changing seemed overwhelming. The good news came about 5 months after the bad on March 20, 1968. The Brighton registry cop, sitting in the passenger seat of our Ford Falcon, said the magic words "You passed. Mr. Levine." Both my dad and I smiled at the announcement that I had my license. I wasn't beaming however. A Brighton dentist and Kiwanis club member, Dad has used his connections to put the fix for my license. The dreaded parallel parking ordeal was conspicuously absent from the test. In my estimation I add just obtained a class C* license (*limited use until licensee gains enough Confidence). "Keep practicing, " the registry inspector said. Yeah I would definitely have to. * * * I first met Betsy in the late fall of my senior year in the Colby College parking lot. She was not all that good looking. Yet I wanted to possess her. "Betsy's sort of a wreck. She's been in the family for 10 years and seen better days. I am worried how she'll hold up this winter. But she's good to do knock around errands and find the pub," said Gail, my date, giving her cheery introduction to her station wagon. Gail, did cheery easily. She was flirty, pretty and tall, and dressed preppy in sweaters and skirts, which for me trumped hippyish work shirt and jeans. Best of all she seemed to ignore my awkward shyness. Plus Betsy was taking us to a downtown bar where there was the possibility that a shared pitcher of beer would unlock my inner Jack Nicholson or at least my Woody Allen alter ego. "Hop in" Gail said as she slide in behind the wheel. As I took my too familiar shot gun seat, I realized that the only preventing a potential perfect evening was this seating arrangement. Since getting a license I had still not taken control of the drivers' seat. I would have loved to bring up a car to school, but I would have to pay someone to drive it up from Greater Boston to Maine. I still barely negotiated the curves of Route 128, which appeared to me to be Indianapolis 500 caliber. I also could still not imagine keeping up with the maniacs on the Maine Turnpike, blazing by way past the 70 mph speed limit. Thus, there I was lusting after Gail, but still lusting after Betsy even more. I vowed right then I would compartmentalize my driving fears into the glove compartment and get my own Betsy as soon as possible no matter how clunky she may be. Two months later, as commander of my new 1968 Ford Fairlane convertible, time had come to make a deployment decision: should I drive my dorm mates home for Christmas Break now or wait until the heavy snow abated? There were ominous sounds, the clanking of the over-worked dorm lounge radiators, the wind outside and my three passengers exhortations of "All set, Bill, lets get truckin. Warm up the old snowmobile." For me, embarrassingly still a high school level driver, 2 hours on the snow-covered Maine Turnpike was a INDY 500 daunting. I had to bring up the option to wait out the storm to my Boston or bust team. "Guys are you sure you don't wait around until the roads get better later on?" I asked calmly, trying to be a voice of reason and not project a panicked plea. My three Colby passengers had no qualms about our prospective fish-tailing excursion. Scott, a cocky freshman said, "Bill don't worry there's three of us. If you hit a snowbank, we'll push you out. "Come on there's no beer to drink here." We've got to leave now." Of course, I could have just postponed the drive home. But we were in a sitting in the lounge of Chaplin Hall on a Sunday morning surrounded by the macho debris of empty beer cans slim jim wrappers and the ever vandalized pay phone. We were also at Colby College in the woods of Maine where the "extreme roughing it " attitude of the outing club was dominate. Therefore, a mere snow storm was not enough to cry uncle. As we loaded up the Fairlane with duffel bags, my confidence was running on empty. Meeting Gail and Betsy had propelled me to finally get a car. If nothing else, I wanted to be in the driver's seat on a date, but driving home in a snow storm was much more daunting then ferrying into town for a movie and a beer. Kennedy Memorial Drive the main road to the Maine Pike was snow covered, but I was hoping that the Pike would be in better shape, so the sign FOR 95 SOUTH was inviting. I turned into the exit ramp. Then the ragtop turned and turned into a full 360. The car and my life spun completely out of control for a few long seconds. We were lucky no other cars were approaching. When the spinning stopped. I polled my three passengers about forging ahead, but I knew I had to get back on my horse or more specific the 200 horsepower, to gain traction as a real driver. I turned the car around and carefully entered the snow covered pike. For the entire expedition to Boston that wintry day, I never went over 52 mph and stayed in the right lane almost all the way. My road timidity in this perfect for the conditions. My adrenaline helped me feel the traction so I was able to slow down to avoid skidding. To my surprise, the passengers were OK with me at the wheel. They didn't order me off the road for rest stop intervention on my poor "wheelmanship" as I had fantasized. The early mileage markers on the 106 mile pike, "100", "90" were taunts that un-steerable situations would eventually occur. The later mileage indicators "20, "10" marked accomplishments for my nascent driving skill. I finally arrived home in the early afternoon, after dropping my riders off safe and sound. I was just another kid who had driven home for Christmas break. That was a terrific feeling, but for the next 40 years or so terrific feelings and driving were almost always mutually exclusive. * * * After around six hours on the road to Villanova, I triumphantly exit the last highway in Pennsylvania. The GPS lady has me a mile from the hotel that I had been to once before. She indicates that in .3 miles I should take ramp ahead. That doesn't make that much sense, but I didn't want to rely on my suspect spatial memory. Oops. In a few seconds I realize that the GPS has put me back on the highway in the wrong direction. Dammit, my perfect drive is ruined, I had gone 317 out of 318 miles by myself, without even one stupid error. It had been incredibly a honk-less trip. I had accumulated no near misses, had not straddled the merge area, and had even located my car in the rest area with minimum wandering. But now my perfect game is over. I take a deep breath. Still it is a ride I can be very proud of. The GPS lady was disoriented, but not me. I might want to trade in the Highlander for a Volkswagon, after all their slogan is "Drivers Wanted."
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