Memory Day: Learn2Drive

My first driving experience (outside of steering on my dad's lap) came at the Go Kart Raceway after sixth grade, at the birthday/going-away party of the occasionally mentioned Daniel Bethancourt. The track workers were leery of letting someone so small drive a go kart, and after getting stuck on the tire-barriers twice, they drove me back to the beginning and told me to go wait in the video arcade.

Three years later, I took the classroom portion of Driver's Ed during 10th Grade Summer Gym, since it was offered freely to all public school students in Alexandria. The quality of the offering matched it's price, since the entire session consisted of old reel-to-reel films about accidents (and not even any gory precursors to the Saw franchise). Unfortunately Asians age much slower than those around them, and I was only 13 at the time of the course. This meant that I wouldn't actually be able to drive for another 3 years.

In the summer before my senior year, my parental training consisted of three full laps around the NOVA campus parking lot before taking it to the next level with Interstate 395. After proving to my dad that I could drive in a straight line, I took the test to get my learner's permit. I failed two questions -- one on blood-alcohol limits and another on types of license penalties, and then passed the practical test with an Examiner who didn't care about my driving as much as he cared about having a new audience for his governmental conspiracy theories.

With learner's permit firmly in hand, I set out to acquire the mandatory "seven hours of road driving" required to become a full-privilege driver in Virginia. Although today I realize that seven hours is barely enough to master the radio, at the time I hated it because it seemed like such a long period, especially when stretched into seven hour-long sessions. We went with Keith's Driving School, probably because there was a discount involved, but also because Keith looks like an upstanding not-at-all-shady individual who would also be able to sue for millions and protect our rights if we got in a car accident.

My instructor ended up being Big Mike, an overweight fellow with rainbow stickers on his car who asked me if I had a boyfriend. During the hours driving around Hybla Valley, he would play demo tapes of his amateur recording sessions on country guitar. One of the songs he'd written had the chorus "You're the only man I'll ever love". Then he'd get hungry and force one of the drivers to take him to 7-11.

Money well spent.