A Summary of This Week: Part 1 - To Be or Not To Be....

....legal. 

As you may recall, Tony and I were going to get our North Carolina driver's licenses this week. We studied the NC rules of the road and off we went to the DMV.  We passed the eye exam and the road signs test.  From there we were set up on a computer with 25 questions.  In order to pass you had to get 20 correct.

Tony got 20 correct and 5 wrong.   I got 19 correct and six wrong....failed.   ARG.   It was my last question, I had a 50/50 shot at getting it right...and I didn't.  So, I have to go back and retest....or do I?

Many of you may not know that I drove for 2 years without a license.  I was able to buy a car, with no proof of insurance or drivers license.   Go figure.   So, how did that happen?

Well, my father didn't believe in women doing a lot of things--getting a higher education, living by themselves or driving.   When I married Jenna's father, I didn't know how to drive (recall the "cow" story) and he really didn't care as we only had one car. 

After I was widowed, I moved in with my younger sister, Fritz.  She learned how to drive and was the proud owner of a big, beautiful car with "Corinthian leather" as Ricardo Maltaban used to advertise. 

One day, Fritz had a date and I was having a church committee meeting at our house.  I made cookies for the meeting and Jenna, who was almost 4 at the time, wanted one.  When I told her she could have one, she ran to the coffee table, slipped on the carpet and cut her eyelid wide open. 

From the kitchen, I heard this blood curdling scream and ran into the living room to find Jenna on the floor and blood everywhere.  There I was...alone with a bleeding baby.  Well, not totally alone....there was Fritz's car.  And in a split second, I made a decision.   I scooped up Jenna and a towel, grabbed the car keys and my purse and away I went.   I had Jenna's head in my lap...which of course, meant that there was blood all over the Corinthian leather, but I didn't care.  I got her to the hospital and they stitched up her eye.   She was one screaming, crying, scared little girl with a huge patch on her eye when it was over.  (Kind of the same condition that Fritz was in when she found out I had driven her car and didn't have a chance to clean up the blood yet, except she didn't have a patch!) 

It wasn't until I was going back to the Emergency Room parking lot that I started to realize I had driven a car...a large car....and I didn't know how to drive.   But there was something in my brain that said...."you did it.  You drove a car.  You did what you had to do." 

I started to think of all of the things I could do if I had a car.  I wouldn't have to wait until someone was available to take me places, I could just go. 

A few days after that, I put a few hundred dollars down on a 1973 blue Mustang.  God,  I loved that car--and I drove.  I watched other drivers and did what they did.    For the next two years, I felt like I was the best driver on the road.  If the speed limit was 35 mph, I drove 35 mph and not a mile more (or less.)  I came to complete stops (not rolling) at every stop sign and made sure that I was following all of the rules...well, except the one about having a license (at the time, having car insurance was not mandatory.) 

I grew confident in my abilities and also felt free.  I didn't worry about not being able to take care of Jenna anymore, because I proved to myself that I could. 

Eventually, I did get a license.  It seems reckless now that I think back about not having one, but it was a turning point for me.  I breezed through the Ohio  tests because I had been driving for so long.  So, here I am faced with...."to be a licensed North Carolina driver, or not to be (and stay licensed in Ohio.") 

I'll let you know which way I'm leaning after I re-take the test.  Another failure could keep me with that ugly pink Ohio license...but, it's a license.