I was lucky in that I started driving around twelve. It was one of the few things my dad seemed to enjoy doing with us as youngsters. If we weren't doing much on a weekend, he would even suggest let's go for a drive. Maybe it was his way of getting out of the house, maybe I was being a pain in the ass, I'll leave it at that. By the time I was fourteen, I was able to drive to high school by myself. I didn't have a reason to drive by myself since my mom worked there, I just rode with her, but for band practice and stuff after school, I would take our old 1979 Cougar. It was a cool car until my dad hit a deer with it, and it was never the same. But still, it was my car for a good while, then I graduated to driving my folk's truck, which was an F-150 Supercab. That was the start of my love affair with driving a truck, plus men in Texas are supposed to drive trucks, it should be a law.
My complaint today is not that, it's more of an observation on small town people being afraid to drive in the big cities. I always thought it was weird growing up, it was a conversation piece. One of my aunts still will not drive to San Antonio. In high school, I was taunted with the wait until you have to navigate in those big cities, get off on wrong exit and you are going to be lost or sent to the wrong side of town. I have missed exits, but I always figure out how to get back. I don't even think about the fact that we are driving in a big town and there are more challenges. I was and still am worried for Boy, but a parent always worries.
I learned to drive manual transmission with the commuter bus that went between Crystal City and Uvalde, which is about a 45 minute drive. I started asking questions to the driver who was one of the students and within five minutes he said do you want to drive, and before I knew it with the bus going 55, he stood up and I jumped in the driver's seat and before I knew it, I was driving probably 30-40 students with absolutely no skills on how to drive stick shift. By the time we got home, I was doing OK. He let me drive it a couple more times and then I volunteered to drive the commuter bus the second year. Why not? I was going to be in the bus either way, why not get paid to get to school? I considered myself the most responsible person on that bus anyway, so it was a good fit. This also made it much easier on my folks to buy me a vehicle to come to UT. I got a very well priced new 1991 Ford Ranger when I was ready to leave home, and it was a manual, advertised for $7995.
I bring this up because Wife was telling me she is taking some coworkers with her to a conference in San Antonio and both the ladies do not like to drive in the big city. Even more fun for Wife, she called on her way back home that each of them had taken a row in the suburban she was driving and they were both asleep, not even bothering to keep her company on the way back, like Wife wasn't tired. She told them, they are on their own Friday, because she is driving in her car, so she can head up to Austin afterwards. She is not going to chauffer both of them and then turn around and do another three hours to get up here.
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