Premiere of "Flashback Friday" ~ Your First "Ride"

Today is the kick off at Mocha with Linda's place for her new meme, "Flashback Friday." Care to flash with us? Check out her prompt, write and link!

How and when did you learn to drive? Do you have any particular memories associated with getting your driver license? How old were you when you got your first car and what was it? Who paid for it?

Did you have Fun Fun Fun 'til your daddy took your T-bird away?

I learned to drive in the summer of 1977 (between freshman and sophomore year?) through driver's training at Muncie Southside High School. On my first day of actual driving with three other students in the car, our teacher yelled at all of us, especially me. For no reason. He was a lunatic. Here I am as a sophomore, I think:


I did not have to take an actual drive test on the day I received my license, just take the test. I cannot remember the moment I took the test or passed or had my picture taken, but I remember driving myself down 26th street that afternoon, stopped at a light thinking, "I am really driving this car. All by myself. There is no one else in the car with me. I'm driving myself to school." By the way, school was about 3 miles away from home.

Still--oh the thrill! Driving alone!

The best part of that beginning to drive business was that my much older brother dealt in cars, and he had found a used Chevy Camaro and convinced my parents into buying it for me: "Those heavy doors make it one of the safest cars out there." If I never thank my brother for anything else in life, I will always be thankful for that triumph!

So there I was at the light of Macedonia and 26th, the intersection between my elementary school on Macedonia (1st pic) and my high school on E. 26th Street (2nd pic). Poetic. In an orange Camaro with metallic flecks.










I drove that car all through high school and a couple of years of college, until the rust ate through the floorboard. On the day my brother came to haul it away, I was sad.

I ran and grabbed my dad's little camera and tried to take a picture, which I remember turned out very blurry. I hope that pic is still somewhere in my parents' house because at 47 I'm used to looking at blurry things and finding the beauty in them, anyway.

But here's a reasonable facsimile, minus the colored wheels. My apologies for blatantly using the image of someone's Camaro.



So I did have fun, fun, until Brother took the Camaro away. It was a great time in my life. Thanks for reminding me, Mocha Lid!