Who Needs Autoescuela, Anyway?

17 February, 14

Who needs autoescuela, anyway?

The short answer is anybody that wants a Spanish driver's license. Duh.

I don't remember many of my birthday parties. It's more like a composite sketch or montage.

• A gathering at the upstairs kids' classroom at Wesley United Methodist Church on College Avenue. 
• Chuckie Douglas playing with my brother's really cool ladder style fire engine that squirted water out of the fire hose.

Okay. That was a really short film. I think I am going to go sit in a corner right now and suck my thumb.

The birthday that I do remember the most vividly is September 17, 1985. No birthday bash or celebration awaited me. This predates Facebook's birthday reminder service, so no posts from people you can't remember. It was a Tuesday. This birthday was special for only one reason:

FREEDOM!

I got my learner's permit to drive. 

Well almost freedom. Another six months of careful adult supervision, and then freedom, but it was close enough for me. 

My driving school education started at age 13. Becky, my sister, surprised the hell out of me one day and offered to let me drive. We took the family Chevette out to Woodlawn Cemetery, which had a nice big oval driving path. She shrewdly calculated that the danger of killing anybody at a cemetery was relatively low. 

My next lesson came at age 14, when Grandaddy let me drive his pickup truck all the way from Hartsville to downtown Florence, figuring that if I didn't learn how to drive, nobody on his crew of 8 or 10 drunks and homeless people would be able to get anywhere. I ran over an already dead dog, lying in the middle of Highway 52.  I was too scared to change lanes. He assured me that it was already dead. 

Then I took Driver's Ed at Hartsville High School. Fifteen of us sat in a trailer at the back of the high school and tried to act nonchalant. After a few weeks of the obligatory safe driving tips, we hit the road with the teacher. I think he was an assistant football coach too.

"Surely you have some qualifications to teach right, Coach?"

"Well, no actually I don't. I can't even spell my own name."

"Hmmm. Well today is your lucky day. We just had an opening to teach Driver's Ed. Whaddya think, Coach? We'll even pay you."

"WOW! I get to be a real live teacher?"

"Yes you do! Congratulations, Coach! Here's the keys to the car. Go get 'em!"

So Ol' Ball Coach (OBC) would strap us in the school's Chevette and strap himself into the passenger side. If he had any shred of intelligence, he would have signed a deal with Tum's or Rolaids, because he ate them like candy. He had no steering wheel or brakes. Basically he was just another passenger in the car driven by a nervous, pimply-faced teenager. Evidently he was unable to do ANYTHING else with his life, or he would have been doing it. I cannot imagine a more horrifying experience than escorting clueless teenagers around town, as they missed stop signs, made wrong turns and disregarded yield signs. He later went on to progressively worse positions. I am not sure what he is doing now, but I have no doubt about its futility.

Now we are in Spain, back in the Driver's Ed classroom, re-learning what we already know and trying to forget all the practical training we have acquired over 28 years of driving. Nothing matters, except what the stupid book tells us, and that is written in Spanish, although not a Spanish that the average guy on the street could understand, but a lofty, verbose, erudite form of Spanish. I know every speed limit for every type of highway, toll road, street, back alley and bike path in Spain.

I know what a vehicle is:

Non-motorized

• Pack animals
• Bicycles
• Wheelchairs
• Subway trains
• Crutches
• Trailer

Motorized

• Motorcycles
• Cars
• Things derived from cars (I don't know)
• Bus
• Truck
• Tanks
• Hovercraft
• Imperial Star Destoyer
  

The good news is that after I get my Class B driver's license in Spain, I will be qualified to drive all types of farm equipment, without limits regarding size. I am really stoked about driving a John Deere S690 combine through town. I will not, however, be qualified to ride a motorcycle in excess of 125cc. You could hurt somebody with a motorcycle.