Driving a car at age 12

Driving a car at age 12 on a sandy road in lower Michigan

by James K. Sayre

On one of our summer vacations in the late 1950s at a lake in lower Michigan, we had a family blueberrying expedition. My Sayre grandparents were along and they had driven their car up from Detroit. We were driving down a narrow sandy private road in the blueberry woods, and suddenly my Grandmother, said, Jim, why don't you try driving for awhile."

My parents voiced some concerns, but soon I was behind the wheel, steering and pressing the gas pedal. Fortunately, their car had an automatic transmission, so there were basically only three controls: the steering wheel, the gas pedal and the brake pedal. I drove a few hundred yards, a little erotically, but no harm done. We got to a nice blueberry patch, where the blueberries were large and sweet and harvested a few small basketfuls. Grandparents were often good at spoiling their grandchildren.

That was the first, last and only time that I drove a car until I enrolled in the Driver's Education class at age 16 at Mount Lebanon High School. After getting my driver's license, I began to drive my parents' cars. I had a couple of small accidents as a teenager; in a parking lot, I turned the wheel too hard backing out of a parking space, and caught the neighboring car's rear fender with my front bumper. Later, while driving back from Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh in the winter, I slid on snow-covered icy road, Liberty Avenue, and bumped into the car in front of me.

End.

Bottlebrush Press has maintained its presence on the Internet since 1996.

Return to the home page of Bottlebrush Press: The homepage of Bottlebrush Press

This web page was recently created by James K. Sayre.

Contact author James K. Sayre at sayresayre@yahoo.com. Author's Email: sayresayre@yahoo.com

Web page last updated on 3 October 2007.