Back in my day (I shouldn’t be old enough to use that phrase), we had sit down to classes late at night after school with a real person, and then we took Driver’s Ed, where we drove around in a horrible gray car that said, “Student Driver” somewhere on the car. The other two students were anxiously waiting for their turn to drive in the back. The teacher had her foot on a special powerful brake on the passenger side, so she could prevent accidents.
It’s a long story, but I stopped driving when I was 29 (20 years ago), but the longer I drove, the more I should have had this sticker on my car:
At any rate, when it came to parallel parking, the teacher wanted me to come early to class before the other students arrived to give me extra lessons. If that’s not embarssing, I don’t know what is.
I practiced parallel parking in an unusual way, the only way you can if you live in a farm. Plus, you have to have the creativity of my dad in order to do this.
He put two round haybales far enough apart to make a parallel parking space. Here’s an idea for you, but it was about twice as far apart as this, maybe a little more:
My dad is super smart but with that comes absurdity as well. It has always been very fun.
I was so anxious about this I would have dreams about parallel parking between the haybales repeatedly.
Well, I passed my driver’s test when I was 16, but I did have to put a big L and a big R on my hands.
There are more fun stories of when I had my Learner’s Permit at 15 and 8 months, and just how quickly I got my first speeding ticket and how forgiving my dad was.
It was all fun, especially blasting Dave Matthews Band as I pulled into my parking space at school.
Miriam Kavanagh
P.S. This is dedicated to someone very special who is studying to get his driver’s license. May he be a far better driver than I was.. (I know he will be.)
My type of driving… Don’t worry I’m not on the road anymore,
Coffee & Writing 
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