The Rodding Roundtable
Motorhead Message Central => Rodder's Roundtable => Topic started by: msuguydon on June 03, 2007, 08:43:11 AM
My eldest son, got his drivers license two weeks ago. :shock:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/msuguydon/DSCF0016.jpg)
I laugh every time I see this picture.
My wife took this picture after he got home from the BMV, doesn't his expression sum up every red blooded American males emotion !!
To avoid any questions, the car is my wifes toy, its not his.
I'm 61 and remember the day mine came in the mail like it was yesterday. I would run to the mailbox every day, checking to see if it came. Finally it did, and the first thing I did was make a date for that night. :D :D
Your Son looks just like I felt.
Scarey time for Mom and Pop though. I used to lay in bed at night and couldn't fall asleep until I heard both of my Sons come in the front door and go to their rooms. They are now 36 and I still worry. :roll:
Don
Yup, I remember it well, it was nice to be "legal". I used to drive a little, with my Dads blessing, before i got my license. I even made a trip to the Detroit area when my Dad was sick to pay off a car that he'd bought there, my Mom went along, she's never driven, and i'm sure it was nerve racking for her. :lol: Your kid is lucky, he's got moms toy and dads cool car to drive, all i had was Dads station wagon! Now the fun begins...for all of you guys! 8)
Yes.....I probably had a similar look on my face!
Ya me too and it all lead up to the hospital post :lol: :lol: :lol:
Oh ya i need to think positive
Dave :lol: 8) :lol:
Well, I was thinking about this topic abit last night when I was museing how my single Mom had found a way to keep me occupied and out of trouble when I was about 8 yrs old.
She somehow found out that by giving me some drug store bought car mags and an AMT model car kit once in a while, that I would kinda self 'baby sit'.
Not sure she fully realized the future ramifications this policy would bring, it just seemed to be understood that the 'learners permit' would be procured as soon as I turned 14.
Actually don't remember any particular day of receiving my 'official' drivers license since I had been driving as 'necessary' under the permit to school and to 'work' at 15.
I do remember the first time that brave single mom moved over and let the 14 year old kid behind the wheel of her only transportation 48 DeSoto coupe to see if I could handle it. Turns out driving a 'Fluid Drive' was a cool way to learn how to drive a 'stick' without a whole lotta possible screwups.
Growing up in Western New York, we lived a little ways out of town and my swimming hole was the Erie Canal. If I remember right, at 16 I had to first get a learners permit and wait awhile before getting the real thing. My big brother drove me to take the written test for my permit in his '56 Jaguar roadster. Took the test, passed, and when we walked outside he flipped me the keys. KOOOOL. On the way home a pheasant flew out from the side of the road and hit the front fender. I about died knowing that would be the last time I ever got to drive the jag. But he just said, hey it could happen to anyone and let it slide. Just one of many things he helped me out with. I'd tell you about how he got me in the Navy Reserve after I took my Viet Nam era Army physical but don't want to hijack the thread.
Lee
ah....... nope. I do not remember
I remember buying my first 'legal age (19)' six pack of beer
Yup, got mine and thought I was a big shot. Disappeared with some buddies for 3 days to hang with some girls while there parents were away. When I showed back up 3 days later I walked in the door, ma reached over and plucked the yellow plastic hoe out of my baby brothers hands and commenced on beatin the tar out of me all the way to my room. Car got taken away for 3 months and I was grounded for a month to the yard. Yup, I was a real bigshot lol!
Quote from: "msuguydon"My eldest son, got his drivers license two weeks ago. :shock:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/msuguydon/DSCF0016.jpg)
I laugh every time I see this picture.
My wife took this picture after he got home from the BMV, doesn't his expression sum up every red blooded American males emotion !!
To avoid any questions, the car is my wifes toy, its not his.
Good deal. Now he can turn himself around, get back in the car and get himself down to the barber shop... :wink: :D :D
Just kidding... :!: :!: (from a former long haired hippie redneck)
I'd actually been driving since I was 15, 2 years before it was license time. An older high school friend of mine used to let me drive to school, after I had hopped the bus at my house and hopped off at his house. My dad caught me and whupped the tar out of me farmer style. He vowed "no car until you're out of the house", which meant that I replied "So, if I get a car I can leave?" Yep, I got whupped again and had to wait until I was 17 to get a permit. (And this coming from a guy who used to drive logging trucks to W. Va. on the weekends for my grandads sawmill, when he was 14.)
My car to practice with (not by choice) was a 71' Ford Grand Torino wagon. My mom took me for the road test, I parallel parked that sucker the first time, got the license, but never got to drive it again. I graduated soon after, butted heads with the old man once too often, and left home to join the service.
My brother (MO JUNK) had a black and tan dog called Bullet. Bullet went everywhere with us. On the day I got my license, Sam and I hopped in dads 53 Chevy panel truck and we took off for a drive. Bullet tried to run with us and somehow got under a wheel and I ran over the dog. That was 42 years ago and I still feel bad about running over his dog.
That being said it did make me think about old Chevy trucks some. When I was 6 years old I sat on my dads lap and drove a 1950 Chevy truck. When I turned 16 I was allowed to use the 1953 Chevy panel of dads. There are a lot of stories to be told about what went on in that old truck. Today my brother and I still have an old Chevy truck to drive and through the years we have owned many of them. It is funny how some things stick with you throughout your life.
John
edited
i remember the day of my road test well!
mom's brand new '70 olds cutlass ragtop 8) top down,driving around
the town with the examiner riding shotgun :?
the only thing i did wrong acording to the "man" was that i was a little
tentative pulling into traffic, ya gotta punch it to merge with the traffic!
despite the fact what this machine had a w-31 package,and a really heathy mill, the next merge lane came along :) ya you guessed it,
the old car laid down a nice strip of rubber(my first time driving an auto)
the man had a bit of a grin on ,muttered that will be enough of that!
he passed me! yahhh hooo!
i still have the olds maybe its time to fix her up!
Yes, I can remember.......the longest year of my entire life was when I turned 15 and had to wait until I turned 16 to get my drivers licence (in Ohio the legal age was set at 16). I counted the days down until that fate full day that I took my driving test. The written test, passed with 100 percent, the visual test, also 100 percent........but, alas, I failed the driving test.......I thought the world had come to an end, my whole life was a failure, what would eveybody think, I was doomed !!!!! A month later I re-took the driving portion of the test and finally passed !!!! How does that go, free at last, free at last, thank God I am free at last.....
That was the longest year of my life. Now, the years go past so fast that if forget to renew my license (?) go figure. Time changes everything. I would like to tell you more about my experiance with the license and with my first car but I do not want this post to get too long....... I will tell you my first car was a '49 Mercury Tudor........and yes it got "customized"......while I was still in my teens.....honest !!!
Do I ever remember...
Back then there were no learners permits. If you were 15 years old you could drive as long as you had a licensed driver beside you. At 15 years 9 months you could apply for the test. It was supposed to take 3 months to process the paperwork, but sometimes it came early. I took my test at 15 years 10 months. There was no written test. The examiner would ask you questions as you drove, and you had to answer them verbatum. Sometimes he would give you an answer and ask you what was the question. If you missed one word, it was wrong and if you missed 3 you failed immediately. There were 212 questions and answers to memorize.
I showed up at 9:00 AM, the same time everyone else was scheduled to show up, in my bosses 51 Plymouth 4 door woody "Beach Wagon". We had just picked up and delivered to the restaurant, 40 LBS of mackeral, 30 LBS of cod, and 100 LBS of shrimp an hour earlier. The ice from the fish had melted and ran all over the inside of the car. At 2:00 PM my time to test came up. The examiner got in and immediately put a hanky to his face. He told me to pull out of the lot, turn left, and go to the stop sign. At the stop sign he * open the door, jumped out and threw up. When he was all done, he composed himself, made a few entries on the paper, handed me a paper and said: "You passed! Now get that stinker out of here and take your flies with you!" He walked back to the building. My boss and I roared with laughter all the way back.
Aussie kids have to wait untill they are eighteen to get a driver's license and when I was young there was no such thing as a learner's permit, except for a motorcycle. That was obtained at 17, and probably explains why I had a motorcycle from that age. :wink:
As for learning, if you were 17 and could con someone who was off their probabtionary license (that'd make them at least 21 and not really wanting to be wasting time with a kid) into sitting in the front passenger seat, you could drive anywhere so long as your car had a big hellow square stuck on each end with a black L in the middle of it. :oops:
FWIW, at 18 we also get voting and drinking priveliges. At 21 all we got a big party. :wink:
OK back to the story. Being of adult size long before most kids my age, regular driving started much earlier for me. Like about the same age as most Murrican kids. So when the time came to head down to the local police station for my licence it was an interesting day.
Started with the sarge asking what I was doing there.
"Came to get my license."
"I thought you had a license?"
"Nup, only turned 18 yesterday"
So if you don't have a licence who was it I followed back from Stawell yesterday driving your uncle's car?"
"Must have been my brother."
"None of your older brothers live in town any more."
"HMMM good point, maybe it was someone who looked like me."
"Yeah sure. Here fill this out."
"Done, what now."
"I know you can drive, so bugger off and you'll get your licence in the mail in a few days."
That original license was a large paper one, with no photo on it, coz that technologyhadn't been invented yet. And thanks to that, had I ever been pulled up, it would have definitely been my brother driving.
Had he ever been pulled up, he may have had some explaining to do. Like as to why he was not carrying his license. :shock:
And of course if you had a license, you could get into pubs and other licensed premises, but that's a whole other story. :wink:
I only have a vague memory of when I got mine, but it was sort of an anti-climax for me, as I had been driving tractors and trucks for several years, albeit in the gravel quarry, back country roads, or ranch fields; the best part was, that I was legal to go on the roads - one time, when I was about 14 or 15, I "borrowed" my Gramps' pickup when he had gone out of town for the day, and went into town cruising, but was so scared I was going to get caught, that I didn't enjoy it too much.
Now, I do remember when my boys each got theirs: they both took their tests in one of my work trucks, a '79 Chevy Suburban 4x4 that was lifted four inches and had 35 inch tires, and shop made bumpers, with a winch in front, and a big hitch arrangement in the rear. When they took the examiner out to the truck, both examiners had some reservations, but they went on and got it done. The examiner for my youngest son was a petite lady, and her shoulder just barely reached above the floor level; my boy went and opened the tailgate, pulled out a storage box, went and put the box down for a step, opened the door and offered her his hand. I think he would have passed, without even leaving the parking lot. And "ol' dad" was sitting over on the sidelines, grinning like a "cheshire cat". :mrgreen:
Getting my license was kind of anti-climatic also--( I was driving a tow truck when I was 15 , so it was no big deal..) My son getting his was kinda special though....He took his drivers test in '87 in a restored '66 Fairlane XL hardtop that I had given him on his 15th birthday...From then 'til he turned 16 we went through the car & when completed it was an excellent driver... All stock..Good looking car..Nothing "Hot Rodded or modified" ...The examiner inspected the car for light's..horn..safety items as they do all cars being used for driving tests...Came time for the road test & my son refused to start the car until the examiner fastened his seat belt....For some reason the examiner was not pleased with that.......never did find out why...