Driving Lesson #1

Our phone rang after lunch-time today, and it was young Miss C, asking if I had time this afternoon for her first driving lesson with me. She made a point of telling me that we could use my husband's car, rather than my new car, if I didn't feel "comfortable" letting her drive my car.

I never thought of not letting her drive my sporty little car. When I got to her house, I told her that I knew exactly how my car would react, and how it needed to be handled in any situation... two things that I don't know about my husband's car, since I rarely drive his car, and he almost never drives mine.

Just as I thought, C is a "natural driver," as my father would say. My dad told me those same words time and again when he was teaching me to drive so many years ago. From the first time he let me get behind the wheel, I just took to that car as easily as I got used to my bicycle when I was younger.

For about an hour this afternoon, C drove up and down and around all the streets of our subdivision, plus the streets of the two subdivisions which connect to ours. When she first took the wheel, C kept asking me which way she should go. I suggested the first couple of right or left turns, then I told her to pick out her own route, being that she knows all of these streets so well. C quickly came to the conclusion that riding her bicycle around the streets is a lot different than driving a car around the same streets.

She's going to be just fine with driving... she's just nervous enough to be very cautious, but not nervous enough to whittle away her confidence behind the wheel. I was just so proud of her today that I had to dab at the corners of my eyes with a tissue while she was driving.