No more driving Miss Katie

SHERWOOD KIRALY

Katie is 15 now, and taking a driver’s ed course which Mr. Roche

teaches on Wednesday nights.

Lately she’s been learning stuff like who backs up if you meet

another car on a one-lane hill (the driver coming downhill backs up,

in case you’ve been doing it wrong), but at the last session she’s

going to see “Blood on the Pavement” or “Streets of Gore” or “Road

Kill” or whatever they’re calling the movie they use now to scare the

bejabbers out of the students before they hit the road.

So Katie will be driving soon. For parents, this is the separation

which precedes the big separation.

Up till now, Katie has been chauffeured by either Patti Jo or me.

In the car we talk, unless one of us is freezing the other one out.

We sing. We communicate, an activity we tend to neglect at home.

There’s been a lot of hauling, to school and stores and riding

stables and movies and friends’ houses. This is sometimes boring or

inconvenient. But a father hasn’t lived until he’s driven four or

five girls around while they sing “Weird Al” Yankovic. It doesn’t get

much more carefree than that.

I’m just about out of the picture now, though. Soon, when we’re in

the car, I’ll be in the passenger seat, acting calm. And then she’ll

be driving off by herself, which means that if she’s a minute late

getting home I’ll be standing out in the driveway staring down the

street. They have to put 30,000 miles on the odometer before you can

relax a little.

By then they’re usually living elsewhere, and you’re fresh out of

kids.

That’s when you need to go to the emotional memory bank and

withdraw all that aggravating juvenile behavior you stockpiled so you

wouldn’t miss them so much.

Like, when Keaton started driving my car he would change the radio

station, the seat position and even the angle on the steering wheel,

which enraged me because I didn’t know how to change it back. It

helped a little to remember that, when he left.

When Katie was a baby she would occasionally launch into a crying

jag, from sickness or infant angst, and the only sure way to stop the

crying was to put her in the car and take her for a ride. Once we

took her to Seattle.

When she was about eight she used to kick the back of the driver’s

seat out of boredom. I told her to cut it out and she did.

Beyond that, I have little in the bank. The truth is I liked

driving her around. Now she knows more rules of the road than I do,

and soon she’ll pull out of the driveway and disappear down the

street. No matter how fast she drives, it won’t be as fast as she

grew up.