On the Road with Elly
Now that it's in February and only 2 months away from the time where April turns 17, Lynn Johnston has decided it is finally time to address April and her driving. I suppose she needs one strip to justify the publicity comment for the "Home Sweat Home" For Better or For Worse collection which says:
April turns sixteen and will soon be driving – which is driving her parents crazy.
I remember well how it was when I turned 16 and I was eligible to get a driver's license. The high school I attended had driver's education as a part of its curriculum and I know of no one who did not take it. In the mountains of Western North Carolina in the 1970s, the common method of teaching a kid to drive was to take a vehicle into some vacant field and let the kid drive it around and get used to the feel of the vehicle where he or she didn't have to worry about hitting anything. You could get a license to drive a farm vehicle at age 14 (if I remember correctly) and it was under the auspices of that law this sort of thing was done (probably illegally). We owned no vacant fields, and so this was something I did not do. I found that when I first got into a car with the driver's ed instructor (one of the football coaches), it was with 2 other boys who had already gone through that rite of passage and so, at age 15, I was the least experienced driver in the car.
Unfortunately for me, the cars on which we were taught in high school were all automatic, and so I got no experience driving a stick. I remember one time, when my father decided he was going to teach me to drive a stick shift, by driving around town. By the end of it, he was such a nervous wreck, he never tried to do that again. Much like April in today's strip, I did not do badly, but my father was so wound up, it was a wholly unpleasant experience at the time. I remember it fondly today.
As for April and her situation, I can only imagine why she would want Elly to teach her to drive. When you get right down to it, almost anyone in her family would be a better choice, since Elly is the one most likely to be shrieking and screaming throughout the process. For my own peace of mind, I am going to imagine that April has already had professional driving instruction, and possibly her G2, and this is just how Elly is, every time April gets behind the wheel.
April turns sixteen and will soon be driving – which is driving her parents crazy.
I remember well how it was when I turned 16 and I was eligible to get a driver's license. The high school I attended had driver's education as a part of its curriculum and I know of no one who did not take it. In the mountains of Western North Carolina in the 1970s, the common method of teaching a kid to drive was to take a vehicle into some vacant field and let the kid drive it around and get used to the feel of the vehicle where he or she didn't have to worry about hitting anything. You could get a license to drive a farm vehicle at age 14 (if I remember correctly) and it was under the auspices of that law this sort of thing was done (probably illegally). We owned no vacant fields, and so this was something I did not do. I found that when I first got into a car with the driver's ed instructor (one of the football coaches), it was with 2 other boys who had already gone through that rite of passage and so, at age 15, I was the least experienced driver in the car.
Unfortunately for me, the cars on which we were taught in high school were all automatic, and so I got no experience driving a stick. I remember one time, when my father decided he was going to teach me to drive a stick shift, by driving around town. By the end of it, he was such a nervous wreck, he never tried to do that again. Much like April in today's strip, I did not do badly, but my father was so wound up, it was a wholly unpleasant experience at the time. I remember it fondly today.
As for April and her situation, I can only imagine why she would want Elly to teach her to drive. When you get right down to it, almost anyone in her family would be a better choice, since Elly is the one most likely to be shrieking and screaming throughout the process. For my own peace of mind, I am going to imagine that April has already had professional driving instruction, and possibly her G2, and this is just how Elly is, every time April gets behind the wheel.
posted by howard at 9:36 PM
12 Comments:
That would be a safe assumption to make. Elly is unable to resist 'helping' her daughter with unsolicited advice at the dinner table, while doing homework, packing for a trip, prepaing food, doing yardwork, and so on and so forth. This is just Elly being the Nagging Fairy. Hey! I just came up with something for her: ETNF: 'Elly, the nagging fairy'.
Howard, you and this strip have really brought back some memories. Yikes.
By the time I was 14, we were living in Iowa. At that time, anyway, a kid could get a learner's permit at 14, a school permit at 15, and a permanent license at 16. I learned how to drive first on mom's minivan (automatic), but then my parents realized they would probably be buying a stick shift for the "kids car," so they had to teach me.
Dad's truck had a stick shift on it, so it was his job to teach me. He would take me to very awkward places to practice, like small parking lots, places where the cops liked to hang out, etc. After ten minutes, we would both have had enough of his screaming at me for every minor mistake. Finally, he took me to the shooting range where he liked to practice and just left me in the lot to practice on my own. This wound up turning into a nightmare. All the patrons, the owner, my dad, the owner's family, etc. all came out to the lot to point and laugh at me as I tried to drive his stupid truck with the sticky gearshift.
So, when he bought a stick shift Corolla for me to drive, I still didn't know how to do it. His solution? On the way home from buying the car, he drove out into the country, made me trade cars with him, and took off for home in the automatic. Not only did I not know where I was, but I couldn't drive the car, either. It took a few hours before I got home. One of the most nerve-jangling experiences of my life.
Of course, that was how he taught me to ride a bike, too, so I should've seen it coming.
Yes, my dad is a psychopath. What tipped you off? ;)
Anyway, Elly reminds me of my mom's approach. Only Mom wasn't quite as sanctimonious and mouthy. She was just really, really jumpy. She would slam her foot against the floorboards, stomping on her invisible brake, every time we went over 25 miles per hour. One time, when my younger sister was learning to drive, Mom thought she saw a disaster in the making and literally jumped into the driver's seat on top of my sister! The "disaster" was that my sister was turning around in a driveway that crossed a culvert (common in Iowa) and she was sure Katie would put the car in the ditch. (In fact, my sister was doing a good job of driving.)
Yes, my mother has an anxiety disorder. What tipped you off? :D
Worst of all was that Mom would insist on dragging my three younger sisters along on my driving lessons, the idea being that they could learn something and future driving lessons would not be so harrowing for Mom. So I had a peanut gallery, pointing and laughing.
But that is just normal sister behavior. :)
DreadedCandiru2,
ETNF: 'Elly, the nagging fairy'.
I’ll have to write this one down, so I know what you are talking about, when you use this one.
qnjones,
Your experiences are horrifying, but they do make for great stories.
Of course, that was how he taught me to ride a bike, too, so I should've seen it coming.
Your father drove you into the country and abandoned you to ride your bike home, when you didn’t know how to ride a bike?
Of course, this allows me to recount my heart-warming accounts of my children learning to ride a bicycle, which I presume is the kind of bike to which you were referring and not a motorcycle.
My son was taught by his favourite grandmother. The kids had each been given bicycles with training wheels to ride in their early days. One day, when the grandmother was visiting, I came home from work and found my son was riding a bicycle; because his grandmother had decided during the day it was time for him to ride with no training wheels.
A few years later, my daughter decided it was time. Some of her friends had started riding without training wheels, and so she asked me to take them off her bicycle. I was all ready to be the one to teach one of my children to ride a bicycle. She had on her knee pads and her helmet, and I was running beside the bicycle and I would say, “I am going to let go, but I will be right beside you so you don’t crash.” Well, my daughter panicked every time I let go, and the stress was so much for her, after just a few times of trying she gave up. Then for years I would say to her, “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll go out with you and we can try again.” Never happened. She was content to ride her scooter.
Well, this past week, her mother is looking at her old bicycle, which is now much too tiny for her to ride on, even if she were to decide to do it. She takes the old bicycle and donates it to one of these places in town which refurbishes old bicycles and sells them at a severe discount to the underprivileged. My daughter discovers this loss and throws a fit, to which my wife replies to her that it was too small for her, and she doesn’t ride a bicycle anyway.
So then, this last week, my wife goes outside to check on my son while he is riding his bike and finds my daughter is riding her brother’s bicycle and he has taught her to ride, and she wants a new bicycle. There’s my heart-warming story.
What is it about football coaches and driver's ed? Both of the driver's-ed teachers at my high school were football coaches!
Cute story about the bicycles, howtheduck. I guess it should have come as no surprise that driving wasn't going to come naturally to me, as I didn't manage to get the hang of riding a bike until I was 11. :)
aprilp_katje,
What is it about football coaches and driver's ed?
At my school, they had to have something to do when it wasn't football season. So, one did driver's ed. One taught history. One taught French. None of them were any good at it, except the guy who taught driver's ed, was actually a pretty driver's ed teacher, I thought. Certainly better than my dad.
The story of me learning to ride a bike:
For some reason, in our neighborhood, kids learned this skill later than kids I see now. I was 6 and Katie was 5 when we got our first bikes for Christmas. Katie's bike was shorter and came with training wheels. Mine was larger and did not have training wheels. And back then, there were no helmets or knee pads.
Katie had fun all spring, riding up and down the driveway. I couldn't do it. I was a timid and physically awkward child. Balancing was a real challenge. And I was afraid to fall, because falling meant scraped hands and knees. Finally, Mom took pity on me and bought some really rickety training wheels at a junk shop. Riding with those was okay.
But then, summer came. And Dad wanted us all to go on family bike rides. We still lived in "Milborough" then. The residential streets were very quiet. Dad decided the time for training wheels was over. Dad basically hated the idea that kids should be coddled through anything, and having to teach us anything always made him mad. So he just took the training wheels off and said, "ride."
Katie could do it. I couldn't. And that made him REALLY mad. Because that made me a wimp, since my younger sister could do it. I was paralyzed by fear that I would fall off in the street, and be run over (even though there were few cars).
Katie and I made a secret deal, mainly because getting screamed at was no treat for any of us. I would ride her shorter bike, and she would ride my taller one. Since the short bike made it easy for me to put my feet down, that was better. Everyone was happy with this arrangement...except for Dad.
So, one day, we are out on a family bike ride, and several blocks from home, he yells at us all to stop. Then he demands that Katie and I switch to our "proper" bicycles. And then, with my mother and my sisters crying, he insisted they all ride off and leave me behind. So that's what they did. They rode off. When he saw I wasn't following him, he didn't stop, either. They just went on their (not so merry) way.
I knew my way home, and so I wound up riding back to the house and waiting on the front steps for them to come back. As usual, Dad was inordinately pleased with himself, and my mother was really upset but said nothing.
Today, most of his "teaching methods" would get him a visit from Child Protective Services. Of course, I should be equally angry with my mother. It never occurred to her that she could simply refuse to ride on without me.
My shrink says I should write a book. ;)
BTW, the thing with your daughter is classic. I swear, half the stuff my sisters and I learned to do was out of jealousy that our siblings had something that we didn't. I think my sister Mary learned to ride a bike at an ungodly young age (like, 3) just because she didn't want to be the only one riding in the baby seat on family bike rides.
We didn’t have a bicycle when I was a kid. When I was about 12, my brother borrowed a bike from a kid on the block. I got on the bike with my younger brother’s help. While he was supporting the back of the seat I was pedaling on the sidewalk. Then my brother yelled that he was no longer holding me. I screamed, turned my head and fell. I got on the bike again and I was riding on my own.
We didn’t have a car when I was a kid and we still don’t have one. But if we did, and I were the one teaching my children to drive, I’d probably be arrested for murder! A type A personality should allow professionals to teach her children to drive.
Anon NYC
I'm convinced that ALL personality types should leave the driving instruction to professionals! Not just because of the stress of teaching/learning this way, but also because (a) people pass on bad habits without realizing it and (b) even if they are perfectly good drivers, they don't necessarily know how to teach others. Example of "a"--my driving instructor told me about a student of his who was driving in the middle of a two-lane street because his mother told him that's what you're supposed to do when there are no other cars around! An example of "B": A dad who parallel parks in one fluid motion and is unable to break that down into steps his son can learn. And there were many, many other examples.
WAY TO GO NY GIANTS!!!! WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!
It might be too late for FBoFW, but miracles do happen! How about them Giants!
Congratulations to the Giants and their fans. They were the team my family was rooting for during the game.
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