Driver’s Education. Redux.

It’s that all-important first step to freedom. The path to all things fun and un-chaperoned. It’s a requirement for the ticket to ride in the driver’s seat. And it’s usually forgotten once the license is in hand, but there are exceptions, of course.

Back in our little town, when oh-so-many years ago our group became of-driving-age, we did as expected. We took driver’s ed.  The leader of our pack was the first up.  Her name was “Mary Blair.”   A lovely, southern, double-name, she was always, always, “Mary Blair.”   Occasionally MB, and maybe sometimes just Blair but never, ever, just Mary.

The driver’s ed teacher didn’t get that and he called her Mary.  She was in no position to correct him since she really, really wanted to pass the course.

We’d hang on to every word as she’d tell us about her “sessions” with the instructor and the art of turning, parking, and passing.  We all knew we’d all have to go down that road some day and she was our canary in the cave.

Driver’s ed teachers are, understandably, deeply concerned about intersections.  That’s where bad stuff can happen to anyone, let alone a newbie.  So every time our friend Mary Blair and her instructor happened upon an intersection, he’d say:  “Now ease out to your vision point, Mary. “  But we lived in West Virginia and the teacher was a bit of a hillbilly with a slow, easy drawl and a serious touch of twang, so it came out more like: “Eeeeze on out to your veee-zhun point, Meery. “  Which may not sound funny now, but let me tell you, it was funny back then and the Mister and I still use that little phrase for many things.

Like right now.  It says it all as we carefully ease back out to our vision points and hope, like crazy, that there won’t be any mishaps along the way and that life, as we knew it, is just right around the corner.