Permit to Drive!

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt, "The Greatest Chevrolet in Chevrolet History," is a colorful illustration of a couple setting off for a pleasant drive in their automobile.   I rummaged through my old family photos to see what I might find that would inspire my submission for the week.   I found my mother's old high school scrapbook from the 1930s and there it was:

Permit to Drive!

It was a picture of my mother preparing to get behind the wheel of the car after getting her first permit to drive!   I am not familiar enough with cars to determine if it was a Chevrolet model or not, but it was definitely not "shiny and new" like the one in this week's prompt.   In fact, on a nearby spot in the scrapbook was another picture of her brother with the same car.

It appears to me that it may have been necessary for him to do some repair work or adjustments on the car.  Perhaps it was to get it started for her on that very same day.



I vividly remember the day I first got my license to drive.  I passed the driving test at the driver's bureau with ease: parallel parking, three point turns, manual turn signals with my arm, etc.   Later that afternoon, after much begging, I finally got permission to take my brother's car out for a short drive by myself.   His car was a beige Chevrolet Corvair.  (Yes, the very same model that activist Ralph Nader demonized).   I drove in a big circle around a neighborhood park then headed up the hill intending to ride by a friend's house.   We didn't have cell phones at that time, of course, so I had called her from home before I left to let her know my plans hoping she would watch for me to ride by from her house.  I was finally sixteen!  I was so proud and felt so grown up!

Suddenly, I was spinning in circles on the road.   I had no idea what had happened.  My hands were frozen in place on the steering wheel until well after the car came to a stop heading in the opposite direction and on the opposite side of the road.   I had been hit broadside by another car.   It was not long before a policeman arrived to evaluate the scene.  He spoke to the other driver first and then came over to take my information.   When he looked at the merely-hours-old driver's license I produced he paused.   I must have been a pitiful sight.  Without writing anything down he told me to go home right away and come in and file my report on another day.

If only my brother had been so kind.....


Check this week's Sepia Saturday site to see other's posts inspired by "The Greatest Chevrolet in Chevrolet History."