Possumblog

On the road.

In addition to making a dandy title for a Beat book or for a television show by an avuncular balding philanderer, it also exactly describes what took place next. Although not with Oldest at the wheel, yet.

The road that runs in front of the school is a narrow, rural road, and has the added challenge of crossing the school driveway on a bit of a rise, and the driveway of the school up to the road is a bit steep, and while the road isn’t really busy, it does have a blind curve toward the bottom of the hill that can conceal a fast-moving car. SO, I let myself get us up on the road and moving toward maybe a small subdivision or less busy no-outlet place. Found one right off--Memory Lane. Short couple of streets, semi-rural, with a couple of interesting hazards--hairpin curve, and a drop-off on one side. Yikes, I’m a moron.

Anyway, I pulled in there and we swapped places. She drove, carefully hugging the shoulder of the road as I gently nudged the wheel back toward the center a bit to keep from hitting various artistically designed mailbox posts and bricabrac on the right-of-way. As I said, there’s a hairpin curve--if you can see on the map, it makes something like a 140 degree bend back around to the southeast. At the very apex of that hairpin sat a sight I have never before witnessed. It is yet another reason why you should ALWAYS carry a digital camera with you.

There, very close to the road, a van. I believe a VW Microbus, probably made when hippies were new, and Elvis was not rumored to be dead. Rear wheels on the ground, front end up on blocks. It was brown. And somewhat lumpy. Because it appeared to be covered with brown shag carpet over mounds of Bondo. Why? Well, because it also had a big round pig snout on the front, and giant ears hanging over each front door like sails. Or pig ears. The legend across the front end said, “ROAD HOG.” Yes, it was a van made up to look like a pig. It didn’t look as though it had moved since Dick and Spiro were still in office, but you know, I don’t think it quite mattered.

On around the bend, and she did pretty good. End of the road, the turnaround got her confused again with the weirdness of backing up and turning, back up the road, pass the Road Hog again, on up a bit, turn onto Cooper Road. Turn signal, ease forward enough to look over the rise, turn, gas. More gas. Please. Get us out of the wrong lane, please. Whew. To the end of that, where she got to turn around in someone’s driveway and successfully missed cars and mailboxes and flower beds. Barely.

By now, it was past noon, and I had to pee, so I told her we’d go over to Clay-Chalkville High (where the driving portion of the class is to be held today--she’s out there driving right now! Eek!) and let her see what there was over there, and it would give me a chance to get rid of the uncomfortable fullness in my lap. I took over from her and we made the run on over to the BP (which stands for Both Pee, which we did) station down the road from the school, then got a couple of drinks and snacks. Sat in the car and ate and drank and talked to Mom on the phone for a minute or two, then after we got that all finished up, off to the other school.

This was a bit different, in that there were cars all over the place for the nearby sports park, and various folks were parked in the school lots. Drive and drive. Parking exercises some more. Stopping, starting, turning. Up the road, missing cars all the way. Three point turn. Maneuvering through a small lot, then a bigger one. Make a loop around. Down the road. Signal, stop, turn. On and on. She did pretty good, although there were a couple of times she misjudged the distance between the car and various curbs, which left the sidewalls of the tires with some nice scuff marks. No loss of wheelcovers, though. We got out on a short stretch of public road, turned, then turned again. AAGH! Actual traffic! She did fine. Up a short stretch then turn, up that road, talked about how to anticipate changes in the road ahead without seeing them, turned around, came back out, turned back the way we came, down the road, and then, the big enchilada--all the way out to Deerfoot Parkway.

Oh my.

Big wide four lane road, with a low speed limit. Should be okay. She turned and off we went. She did okay--had to urge her up the hills with more speed, then urge her to slow down coming off the hills. Stay in the lane. Over. Over. Good. Faster, please. Good. The only real trouble was when she passed the point where it necks back down to two lanes. She moved over to the left, not realizing the truck she’d passed as it pulled out from a sidestreet way back up the road had blazed up behind her. “Head check. Head check. You just pulled out in front of that guy. Don’t trust your mirrors.” On down to the traffic light, turn right onto Highway 11. Too fast, too slow, too fast, too slow. “Just keep an even pace--understand that when someone pulls in front of you to turn, slow up a bit. When they are through, go on and accelerate back up to speed.” It was a bit on the nervy side. But I believe I showed remarkable restraint, witnessed by the fact that she was excited when we got home. But, not there yet. The road opened back up to four lanes through town, and I got her to get in the left lane so we could make the turn up the hill. A fat guy on a Harley trying to relive a youth he never had blatted by on her right and tapped his helmet. Hey dude, sorry. But if there’s anyone who should know about driving defensively, it’s bike riders. So, I wouldn’t tap my helmet too much, were I you. Made the stop at the light--with some help from Mr. Handbrake--then on to the next light. Signal, stop, wait for the green arrow, turn, GOOD. On up the hill, around the curves, over the bumps, a couple of hard stops, and she was home.

And very excited, as I said. She ran in and told Mom she’d driven all the way home from CLAY! Very nice. Now get to work and finish your paper.

I, on the other hand, had gotten my super surprise package! My new old tachometer and clock kit I bought off Ebay! The Volvo came with a big clock in the dash, and a tiny tachometer in the auxiliary cluster. The clock no longer works, and the tach is too small to see, and there is quite a little cottage industry of folks who sell the big tach, little clock package to set things right. Worked on that for an hour or two, and got everything installed FINALLY. Electricity is a mystery to me. Had to change the wires around a couple of times, and I STILL have something quite, quite wrong. Everything works fine--clock does great, new tachometer works fine--except when I turn on the headlamp switch, which causes the tach to die. I think that means I have a shunt to ground somewhere, but I’m not quite sure. It might mean something else. Probably something not good. Anyone who cares to tell me how to fix that will receive a coupon for a free Volvo ride.

Anyway, buttoned that back up after I’d gotten it mostly working, and came inside to start typing some more.

Whee.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at June 20, 2005 12:49 PM