The drive.

"Who's gonna hold you down

When you shake,

Who's gonna come around

When you break,

You can't go on

Thinking nothing's wrong

Who's gonna drive you home tonight." 

It's hard to believe I am coming up on the 41st anniversary of being able to drive. Legally that is. In many respects, when I was first starting out with my license in my wallet, the last thing I should have been able to do was venture out onto the streets of Chesterfield and the surrounding communities. In the St. Louis area, we really didn't travel too far outside the boundaries of our community—in the beginning I would say Olive, Ladue and maybe Hwy. 141 were as far as I went. That lasted about 2 weeks.

My Dad was the brave one who taught me how to drive. He must have had ice in his veins as he had been through my sister and brother already; now I am not going to be specific, but two of us got their license on their birthday, and one…well let's just say it took a few tries. 

When the magic day arrived, I remember being nervous about one thing…parallel parking. Back then, and I am not sure if it is still done today, there would be two poles placed on a street and you would have to guide your car in between them. Simple right? Not for all of us.

Of what I remember, I hit both poles, and on my second try—the person gave me a mulligan—I I hit one pole twice and the back pole only once. Let's say I had points marked off for this part of the test. Today, some 41 years later, I still avoid parallel parking. My wife always laughs and she has, more times than once, switched places and done the task for me. 

Recently, when I was back in Chesterfield, I thought back to the days before Olive Street Road was widened. When I learned to drive, "Olive" had what I would call a "pie crust" rim on the side; it was there to let the driver know when they had left the main road and were now going up the side of the cement with dirt of gravel awaiting the tire. I knew these rim's very well. There were times before I had my license where I not only went up the rim, but over and onto whatever lie beyond. It scared the crap out of my Dad—then I would I started with, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Fortunately, Olive was eventually widened.

Move forward nearly 41 years and today the roads that provided me with the freedom are a lot different; there are many more stores, restaurants, and diversions that would have made my early driving years impossible. Thankfully, texting, e-mail, and iPhones, were a long way off.

The photo above was taken last week at the Bulls game. Russell Westbook drives the lane and guides his body toward the waiting basket. Unlike my early driving, that night there were no poles, pie crusts, or diversions (except players in his way) to his awaiting goal. I wonder where he got his license?

Thanks for stopping by.