Two Driver’s Tests: Having Fun!

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In 1972 my California driver’s license expired after decades of coverage. I had moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to prepare my Ph.D. thesis for publication. I needed to renew my license to commute to the library, shop in the markets, and tour Detroit.  Just in the nick of time before the expiration, I renewed my license at the Ann Arbor DMV.

I easily clinched the license knowledge exam.  Then I waited in line for the driver’s exam.  A short chubby man directed me to drive my car to the curb to let him climb in.  I was driving a very old and questionably safe station wagon with dents, smeared windows, and tattered seats.  He squeezed into the seat leaning uncomfortably over his exam booklet.

He ordered me to turn on to a one-way street, to parallel park, and to stop suddenly.  I jammed on the brakes nearly shoving him into the windshield.  When he told me to drive back to the office, I asked him if I had passed.  “100%,” he replied.  So, I took a chance; I put my arm across the back of the seat and around his shoulder.  He had a fit.  Yelling at me.  Warning me I could fail the test.  Then he calmed down to ask me why I had done this stupid thing.

“Well, I think this test is stupid.  I am supposed to have both hands on the wheel. Yet do you think that I ever have had my hands on the wheel for very long when I have a wife, two children, a dog with whom I talk, pass treats, point out the window at the scenery, or the red tail hawks on the telephone poles?  A realistic test would require me to behave in a real-life situation.  Not some ridiculously sterile procedure.”

He checked his scorecard.  I needed 70 points to pass. He had taken off 25 for my “failure” to drive carefully.  With a sneer, he said, “Luckily you passed.  I never want to see you again!”

In Taiwan and Japan, once I showed the DMV officials my USA driver’s license and paid my fee, I only needed to pass one test. It was a test of my vision, my response to stop signals, and my recognition of colors.

 

In Taiwan, I joined a line in front of a machine that looked like a wheel of fortune.  The examiner operated the wheel to spin and stop quickly.  The wheel was decorated with lines of colors.  As soon as the wheel stopped, the applicant had to yell out the color.  Then it spun and twirled rapidly again, only to stop on another color. I think this was a test for responding to changing traffic lights.  Fortunately, my Chinese language skills were excellent.  I visually recognized the color and its Chinese name.

The Japanese had a similar test.  As applicants stood in a line, an examiner quickly walked past them, spinning a sign with different colors.  As he passed each person, they were to call out the colors on the signs.  With less assurance, I knew the colors.  I was photographed and given a license.

For me, getting a license was both a challenge and a rush.

Scofflaw

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Sometimes it’s not who you are, it’s who you know…

I grew up in rural Western Pennsylvania, Beaver County.  My mother worked at the Beaver County Courthouse, she was a clerk in the tax office where all taxes, including motor vehicle, were collected.

One sunny afternoon just after my junior year in college, I heard loud, resonant knocking on one of the plate glass sliding doors on the front of the house.  It was a Beaver County Police officer and he wanted to know if I was John Maruskin.

I told him I was and he said, “I have a warrant for your arrest. You have to come along with me.”  A rush of hippy horror roiled my brain’s convolutions like volcanic oatmeal, I probably shook, but I managed to ask, more or less calmly, “Why?”

The officer explained that I never paid near 100 parking tickets in Beaver, PA, ranging over a number of years , that I was a “Scofflaw” and that since I had ignored summonses, I was going to be arrested.

When I explained that I hadn’t lived in Beaver County for most of the last three years as I’d been in school in Washington, DC, he gave me an exasperated scowl and said: “Is your name John Maruskin?”  Since I’d already admitted it, I couldn’t suddenly change my story and say I was just a cousin visiting from “the old country.”

“Yes,” I said, “but…”

“No buts.  I’ve got a warrant for your arrest and you’re coming with me.”

“Wait,” I said, “I haven’t been in Beaver a hundred times in my life.  In fact, the only time I’ve been there in the past few years is when I’ve gone to have lunch with my mother who works…”

And then, as they say, it hit me.

“What kind of car was illegally parked?”  I asked.

“A yellow Chevy Malibu.”

“Oh,” I replied, breathing a sigh of relief, but trying not to seem flip. “That’s my mother’s car.  It’s registered under my father’s name, the same as mine, but my mother drives it to work every day at the courthouse.”

The officer’s attitude changed from adamant to jovial in a moment.

“You’re Dorothy Maruskin’s son?”

“Yes.  She works in the tax office.”

“Yeah, I know her, she’s a real nice lady.  Okay, I’ll go talk to her. Sorry.  Goodbye.”  He walked away.  I sank on the porch glider and recovered.

That evening when my mother got home I asked, “Why aren’t you in jail?”

She held up one index finger, gave a me coy smile, and one of those looks that said, this is just between us.  Then she said, real breezy, “Oh yes, a police officer came by and said he’d notice my car was parked near an expired meter.  He warned me not to do that because I could get a ticket.”

End of story. Whether or not she paid the fines, I never found out.  I doubt it.  My uncle was the police captain in Aliquippa, and a shot and a beer were sufficient to clear a ticket if the offender caught him off duty.  Heck, on duty.  Not corruption, comity

Sometimes it’s not who you know, it’s who knows your mother.

Driving with Susy

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Driving with Susy 

Susy’s family lived on our block,  just a few houses away,  and our parents were close friends.  In my mind’s eye I can still see our mothers sitting together in our kitchen,  me watching in fascination as Susy’s mom twisted the string around her teabag to get the last drop of flavor.

And I remember calling for Susy after school and we’d roller skate together for hours around and around the block.  (See Skate Key)

And I remember running down to their house early one morning to tell them my baby sister was born,  and discovering the date was Susy’s dad’s birthday as well.

A decade or so later I danced with her dad at Susy’s wedding and he told me,  “I’ll dance at your wedding too, Dana.”,  and he soon did.

But back in high school,  altho we were still close friends,  Susy was a grade ahead and we began to hang out with different crowds.  And yet one June day in her senior year it was me she called to say she’d gotten her driver’s license!

Her dad had agreed to lend her the car, and she invited me to drive with her to Orchard Beach that Saturday.   In Pelham Bay Park,  and situated on the western end of Long Island Sound,  Orchard Beach is the only public beach in the Bronx.  It may not have made the list of best beaches on the east coast,  but for us it might as well have been the French Riveria.   It was the place for nighttime hanky panky in cars,  and on summer days it was our beachy Paradise.   We even went to Orchard Beach to study for our final exams,  or so we told our folks – naively thinking they believed us.

Truthfully I don’t remember what we did once we got to the beach on that memorable day – surely we met friends there and Susy proudly showed off her new drivers license,

But I do remember that long-ago drive  –  two young women feeling very grown up and very free,  driving all by themselves to Paradise!

– Dana Susan Lehrman 

RMV Where Lines Stretch Farther Than Your Patience (and Perhaps Your Sanity).

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Ah, the RMV. A mystical land where fluorescent lighting casts a pale pallor on dreams and paperwork morphs into origami dragons – as if fire-breathing was not enough. It is a realm where lines of people weave like drunken conga dancers, each step punctuated by the collective sigh of souls yearning for freedom (from the line, not the existential kind, though that might sneak in also).

Now, let’s talk driver’s tests. I, for one, passed on my first try. Of course, that might have been aided by the lucky clover my Irish grandmother snuck into my shoe – that and maybe the examiner was distracted by the squirrel tap-dancing on the hood of his car. But hey, a pass is a pass, right?

Unless, of course, you were not blessed with squirrel-induced examiner hypnosis – then the RMV becomes your personal purgatory, each failed attempt adding another layer to your Dante-ish descent and your confidence shrinks faster than a wool sweater in the dryer and where the passenger seat became a judgment throne, occupied by your parents/spouse/friend who, bless their hearts, try to offer calming advice that somehow translates to yelling: “WHY CAN’T YOU PARALLEL PARK LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING?!”

But the true test of character, nay, of humanity itself, lies within the walls inside of the RMV. Those lines, my friends, are existential wormholes. At first you enter as a sprightly citizen, full of hope with dreams of open roads. You emerge, hours later, a creature forged in the fires of boredom and fluorescent angst. You’ve witnessed the best and worst of humanity: the line-cutter (may their tires forever be eternally underinflated), the document-forgetful (may their stapler jam eternally), and the inexplicable dude who just talks too loud and too long on his phone.

And yet, there’s a strange camaraderie in these fluorescent valleys. Shared groans of despair echo like a chorus of the damned, united against their paper requiring oppressors. You strike up conversations with strangers, bonded by the universal language of RMV-induced suffering. You learn of life hacks: hiding snacks in your purse, mastering the art of the fake “important phone call”, and developing a sixth sense for spotting the shortest line. (Hint: it’s always the one with the guy muttering about last night’s repeat episode of The Bing Bang Theory.)

So, the next time you face the RMV beast in its lair, remember this: you’re not alone. You’re just another brave soul navigating the fluorescent abyss, one form to fill out at a time. Take comfort in the shared suffering, laugh at the absurdity, and maybe, just maybe, offer a sympathetic smile to the poor sap behind you. After all, in the RMV’s fluorescent embrace, we’re all just fellow travelers on the road to… well, wherever the heck this line leads.

—30–

License to Drive

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Turning sixteen was a coming-of-age ritual.  Not a sweet sixteen party—getting a driver’s license!  Having wheels in mid-twentieth century US meant mobility, freedom, unsupervised hanging out with friends, romance.
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French Dip

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French Dip

One of the things I was determined to do when I retired was to perfect my French.   My husband’s parents were multi-lingual,  he heard  French spoken at home,  and he speaks it fluently.   But although I studied French in both high school and college,  my mastery of that beautiful tongue was poor,  and my husband hadn’t the patience to help.  (See Parlez-vous Francais?)

So I enrolled at New York’s Alliance Francaise and took classes there for an academic year.  Then as summer approached my teacher Marie-France invited interested students to join her for a two week language immersion trip to France.  I signed up tout de suite,  three of my classmates did as well,  and we soon began our French sojourn. 

Marie-France drove us in her small van around the southern coastal region of Languedoc-Roussillon,  which happily for us produces more organic wine than anywhere else in France.   And as we explored the countryside with our teacher,  she continued drilling us in the language.

One very hot day we happened to pass a lovely lake where dozens of families were swimming.   Marie-France stopped the van and we could see some of the women in the skimpiest of bikinis.   But we couldn’t help noticing that many of the other women,  as well as most of the men and children,  were swimming in the nude.

Marie-France said she had some towels in the van and suggested we take a dip in the lake to cool off.  We told her the water looked very inviting,  but we had no swim suits.

”Ici la France!”,  said our teacher.   And so feeling very French,  we took off our clothes and went in!

Mon professeur Marie-France

– Dana Susan Lehrman