Learning to Drive

Short story - practice at narrative.

I learned to drive the summer that I turned ten.  My birthday is in August, at the end of the summer, so I was always one of the youngest kids in my class at school, but I was a girl, and I was tall for my age, and strong because my Daddy had no sisters and just assumed that I could do anything my brothers could do.  Since I had done a boy’s work on a farm from the time I could walk, it never seemed hard, or even unusual.

The other thing about my Daddy was that he was a reader, an intellectual, who loved to learn.  He read to us when we were little, and he read our library books when we brought them home from school.  We read his high-brow magazines and books in return.  He had books from his childhood that we read, too.  That summer, I had discovered the Mailbox Library.  It was so cool for a farm girl who loved to read.  I didn’t need a library card, which was great because Mom wouldn’t get me one.  She had a grudge against the local public librarian, and didn’t allow us to go there.  Mailbox Library came from the County library though, so Mom didn’t object.  I just filled out a form from the catalog that they sent in the mail, put a postcard stamp on it and sent it off.  About a week later, a package of books would arrive in the mail with the return postage label enclosed inside.  I had three weeks to read them and return them, and I could send another order back with them.  All of us read a whole lot more that summer than we usually did. 

Reading was exactly what I was doing on that summer day when I learned to drive.  I was curled up on the easy chair in the living room with Katrina the kitty next to me, engrossed in a book.  It was just me and the parents in the house, but I don’t remember where anyone else was.  My Daddy came in to see what I was doing.  He said, “Why don’t you take the Ferguson out to the field west of the house that we just cut the winter wheat in and practice driving it around?”  Now, the Ferguson was a short little tractor, but powerful.  It was officially a TO35 model, with a hydraulic loader system and a three-point hitch.  When Daddy was using it for planting or cultivating or other fieldwork purposes, he took the loader off, but he also used the loader for many of the things that a skid-steer would be used for now.  It was also the only tractor we owned with a wide front end.  These days, it’s hard to find a tractor without a wide front end, because they are so much harder to tip over.  Anyway, I looked up at Daddy in amazement, since I’d never even steered the tractor before.  He went on, “You know how to start it – you just turn the key and push the start button.  The loader isn't on it, swo you don't have to concern yourself with running the hydraulic system.  You can put it in low range and first gear, and it won’t go fast enough for you to get into any trouble.  Just practice driving around the field, making turns and stuff like that to get a feel for how it handles.  You’re big enough to do that now, and besides, I want to make love to your Mother and you’re in the way.”

I put down my book, and headed out the door without a word.  I think maybe I was in shock.  I climbed up on that tractor, and took my time figuring out exactly what I was doing, since there wasn’t anyone there to double-check that I was doing it right.  I got it started and headed out to the field west of the house – the closest one to the house, actually.  I drove around and around that field, in circles and figure eights and any other way I wanted, for what seemed like hours.  I wasn’t about to quit and go home.  Finally, I saw Daddy walking out to the field, so I drove over to the edge where he was and stopped the tractor.  He climbed up on the side and had me drive back to the house.  He didn’t really critique my driving at all.  It was the first of a series of driving adventures with Daddy – he was the one who taught me to do field work, and who took me driving in the car when I got my permit, and took me to get my driver’s license.  I have many fond memories of learning to drive with Daddy, but none of them match the first one.

A month or so later, in school, one of our teachers asked how many kids from our class had driven a tractor (we were a small farming community) and I proudly raised my hand.  As I looked around the room, there were about eleven hands up out of the fifty or so kids in the class, but I was the only girl.  Yeah, Daddy had done it again – completely disregarded the gender issue. I'd be pretty surprised if anyone else had learned to drive a tractor for the same reason I did, too.  I guess my Daddy was an unintentional feminist and a proponent of open parenting.  I liked him that way.

Reviews

[cloister]

Nice piece, but I can't help feeling that you missed an opportunity for a great twist at the end. You give us this line:

> You're big enough to do that now, and besides, I want to make love to your Mother and you're in the way."

Which is good, and surprising, but oh, how much better it would be to save his _real_ reason until the end? Imagine if he just tossed her the keys and said "You're big enough now. Go on!" and shooed her out of the house before she had time to object. Odds are, she'd be eager to get out there before he had time to change his mind, too. So then, imagine she drives around for a little while, nervousness giving way to pride when she feels she has mastered the steering, gas pedal, and brake. So she turns the tractor off and runs inside, proud and excited to tell her Daddy what she did, only to walk in on them having sex. She bursts in, shouting "Daddy, Daddy, I did it!" then freezes stock still when she realizes what's going on. He can then stick his head up from the blankets and say "I'm proud of you, sweetheart, but christ-a-mighty, couldn't you have done it for just a little _longer_?"

It's a great opportunity for a surprise and a twist. Even better if you introduce the mother into the scene earlier. Maybe the mother is around when her father suggests she goes to drive the tractor. The girl looks to her mother, who exchanges a look and an amused smile with the father. The girl takes this to be simple consent, so she runs out. But really, of course, as the reader and the narrator learns later, the look they shared was really all about something entirely different.

[Georgia Gypsy]

I so enjoyed reading this! I had the experience of sharing your adventure, just what every writer hopes to accomplish! Keep it up. You have a great voice!
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