First Driving Lesson (with Traffic Involved)

Continuing with the series of firsts …

The season premier of Parenthood last night brought back a rather comical memory for me. In the television show, Kristina Braverman takes her 15-year-old daughter, Haddie, out for her first driving lesson. Lots of screaming, commanding and freaking out ensues.

My first driving lesson with traffic involved wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it would had made for funny television. After getting my learner’s permit at the age of 15, my grandpa took me out for my first driving lesson. He chose a dirt road, slid out of the driver’s seat and let me take the wheel. We never encountered any traffic that day, but I learned the basics and Grandpa told my mom he thought I was ready for traffic.

So, one day, my mom and I climbed into her green Pontiac and I backed out of the driveway. We weren’t more than a block from our house when I saw a car coming from the other direction. Until that moment, driving was something adults did. The responsibility of guiding a huge chunk of metal in the general direction of another human being overwhelmed me, and you might say I panicked a wee bit.

“A car!” I said.

“Just stay in your lane,” Mom said. “You’ll be fine.”

“A car!”

“What did you expect to see on the road?”

“I just wish they weren’t on the road. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.”

The car passed us without incident, but I didn’t relax. I don’t think mom knew whether she should laugh or panic along with me. She probably did both. My eyes and focus were too glued to the road to know how she was reacting.

Along came another car.

“A car!”

And so it went that day.

The next time out, I was a little better. By the third time, I laughed about my first encounter. In fact, I still laugh about my first encounter whenever I’m reminded of it.

How about you? Was your first driving lesson (with traffic) any easier? Or was it similar?

P.S. Last week I told you that one of the reasons I changed the look of Little Nuances was to make it easier to navigate. One of the ways to make it easier is adding tabbed pages (see the top of the blog). Yesterday, I added a new tab called “Series.” On it you’ll find links to many of the series I'm doing.

Series of Firsts: First High School Memory

About a week before high school started in1982, the tennis team met for the first time. I’d been practicing all summer, hoping to make an impression on the coach, but not really having any idea how well I’d do against older, more developed players. I entered the tennis courts in a location affectionately known as “the hole” (because it sits down in a bowl-shaped area). I’d spoken with the coach on the phone a few days prior to let him know I wanted to play for the team, but I was still extremely nervous before the first practice.

Thankfully, the coach didn’t make any cuts because I probably wouldn’t have made the team that season. We had about a dozen guys on the team—the most of any of the three seasons I played there.

The coach divided us up the first day based on our experience and we began to run through the various tennis drills he taught us.

I recounted the memory in a post from 2006:

I attended my first high school tennis practice at the beginning of my sophomore year (I know I'll sound old when I say this, but back then, high school started in 10th grade—not 9th). I was immediately enamored with two players. Both were seniors. Both had the latest in tennis racket design (one graphite and the other aluminum—most of the rest of us, myself included, were still using wooden rackets). And both were named Jeff. They played tennis on a level I'd never seen before. They took full cuts at the ball and somehow kept the ball from flying over the fence and into traffic—a skill that I certainly hadn't mastered at that point. They were doubles partners and each of the remaining members of the team were paired up to practice with them. I learned more during that year from them than in all my other previous years on the court combined.

They worked together as a team when they played doubles—complete with hand-signals that indicated when one player was going to poach or stay put. And they were quick to teach the rest of us what to look for and how to position ourselves. Their teaching didn't pay immediate dividends, but it did provide for some comedy.

I remember garnering up the courage to poach during one particular practice session against them. I probably should have abandoned ship when I saw that the serve my partner hit resembled a helium balloon, but I didn't know any better at the time. One of the Jeffs—the one who typically crushed balls from the baseline—stepped into a forehand while I was poaching and the ball was on me quicker than anything I'd ever seen. As I attempted to bail out (I must have looked like a guy who was desperately trying to avoid getting shot) the ball found a nice cushy spot just under the ribs on the left side of my body and I went down in a heap. The ball, however, bounced off my body and found its way over the net for a winner. After everybody saw that I was okay, laughter filled the courts—including from my own mouth—even though it hurt to laugh.

Starting classes a week after I started tennis practice was so much easier since I already knew about a dozen guys and one teacher (the coach). To be honest, I can’t even remember my first day of classes, but I’ll always remember that nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach when I strolled onto the court to play high school tennis for the first time.

Other posts in this series:

• Series Explanation
• First Best Friend
• First Dog
• First Crush
• First Record Player
• First Album/Cassette
• First School
  

Series of Firsts: First Hobby

I caught baseball card fever in 1975. The year before that, my parents got divorced and my mom, my sister, and I moved to a different neighborhood—to the neighborhood my mom grew up in. It was a nice, middle class neighborhood with lots of other kids to play with. And it had Biga’s (Bee-ga’s)—the local five and dime store. I wrote about it here. And Biga’s had baseball cards. Collecting them became my first hobby.

In the post I wrote about Biga’s a couple of years ago, I re-counted my weekly routine as a kid: Every Friday, after my mom got paid, she'd give me two dollars and I'd walk to Biga's—just three blocks away from our house, and I'd buy six packs of baseball cards. At fifteen cents a pack, I still had more than a dollar left for candy or anything else that caught my fancy. Or if I really wanted to go all out, I'd buy twelve packs of baseball cards and use the left over change for “penny candy.”

More times than not, I bought 12 packs of baseball cards. I couldn’t wait to open them. I’d peel the pack open and begin to rifle through the cards before I even got out of the store.

“Got it.”

“Got it.”

“Got it.”

“Whoa. I don’t have this one! Cooooooool.”

Each pack of Topps baseball cards had a stick of gum inside. It was brittle and chalky and it didn’t taste very good, but the bubblegum smell always promised otherwise, so I’d usually stick it in my mouth. Then I’d move on to the next pack. Sometimes I’d end up with three or four pieces of gum in my mouth and I probably looked a lot like one of the pitchers on the cards who had a wad of chew in his cheek.

I sauntered toward home, opening each pack and then placing the cards back in the small brown paper bag Mrs. Biga put my cards in at the point of sale. When I got home, I’d put the cards in a shoebox. I had the players broken down by the team they played for. If a guy had been traded since the card came out, I moved him to the section with his new team. Not knowing any better, I put a rubber band around each team to keep them separate. I’d put the pitchers in front of each team, followed by catchers, first basemen, second basemen, shortstops, third basemen, outfielders, designated hitters, pinch runners, managers, and then team photo cards.

After my collection outgrew the shoebox, my mom ordered several baseball card “lockers” from Topps for me. Each locker has slots that held about 40 cards—which pretty much held a full team for each season.

I had a friend named Willie and we’d get together on the weekends and trade baseball cards. We didn’t trade them based on their market value. We didn’t even know such a thing existed and I’m glad we didn’t. Instead, we traded based on how we valued the player and the coolness of the picture on the card. You have no idea how hard it was and how many cards I had to give up to get him to trade me George Brett’s 1975 rookie card. By then it was probably 1979 or 1980 and Brett was beginning to establish himself as a premier player. I’d never been able to get my own copy of his rookie card, so I was willing to give up almost anything for it. I finally got it from him and it became my prized possession. Little did I know that it would worth more than $100.00 one day. It still sells for $80.00 or $90.00 in good condition. Here’s one example.

When I was 14 or 15, I started going to baseball card shows. By then, I’d learned that cards had a real monetary value and that I needed to take care of them. I kept checklists of cards I needed to complete my sets. I even sold a few cards at a show or two. Then, one day, girls entered the picture, and baseball cards lost their appeal. I sold my entire collection to a friend when I was in my mid-20s. I wish I hadn’t done that. But the funny thing is, whenever I see an old baseball card I used to own, all of the old memories of a more innocent time come rushing back and I feel like I’m nine years old again, standing in Biga’s anxiously waiting to tear into the next pack of baseball cards.

Series of Firsts: First Album/Cassette

My dad bought me my first tape recorder in the early 1970s. This was before boom boxes. I bought a similar one many years later and used it for a long time (pictured on the left) I was about seven when Dad handed me the recorder for the first time and I thought it was the coolest invention ever. We’d drive around in his car on Saturday afternoons and he’d sing songs like “Yankee Doodle Dandy” into the recorder and try to get me to sing along or to say something so he could record it. I was bashful and I shied away from it at first, but I eventually warmed up to it.

He also gave me a Tom Jones cassette with the tape recorder. It turned out to be my first cassette. I don’t remember a lot about it. But I do remember two things. First, Tom’s name was printed as “A-Tom-ic” Jones on the cassette. I thought that was pretty funny, even though I had no idea what it meant. Second, I remember a song called “Promise Her Anything.” In preparation for writing this post, I did a little online research to see if I could find the title of the album/cassette. “Promise Her Anything” appears on several of Jones’ albums, but I did find that it appeared on his 1966 album titled A-Tom-ic Jones. I’m thinking that it must be the one. I listened to the cassette quite a few times, but it never really resonated with me. I liked it because my dad gave it to me and somehow, even then, I felt like he’d given me a little piece of himself because music is so personal.

I’ve lost track of the cassette over the years, but I’m certain that it is in a box somewhere in my basement. The sound quality is probably muddied. The tape may or may not even work in a cassette deck. But the memory of it lives on.

What was your first album or cassette? Tell me the story behind it.

Other posts in this series:

• Series Explanation
• First Best Friend
• First Dog
• First Crush
• First Record Player

Series of Firsts: First Crush

Fifth grade is pretty much a blur to me. I can really only remember a few things about it. First, I had a bowl haircut. The barber didn’t actually use a bowl, but it sort of looked like it. Second, I had just discovered football, and the Pittsburgh Steelers were my team, so I was always wearing something to school with the Steelers’ insignia on it. On class picture day, I wore jeans and a Steelers shirt with the number 10 on it—decades before the number was worn by Kordell Stewart or by the most recent Super Bowl MVP, Santonio Homes. Anybody remember who wore that number for the Steelers in the mid-70s? It was Roy Gerela, the Steelers’ punter. How many kids wear the punter’s number?

While most of my energies were focused on football, something else began to catch my attention that year—a classmate with long red hair. Her name was Brenda. She was popular—at least as popular as a girl in the fifth grade can be, and by now, you already pretty much that I bordered on being a geek. So I had very little chance of getting her to crush on me. I’m not really sure young love is called puppy love—well, actually I do, it’s because the crush happens early in life—but, a better name might be why-in-the-world-are-my-knees-weak-and-why-is-my-stomach-flipping-flopping-all-over-the-place? Okay, that would be a terrible name, but it pretty much sums up how I felt around Brenda whenever I was around her.

First crushes are so innocent, aren’t they? They are all about little smiles, and giggles, and nervous eye contact, and denial, and more smiles, giggles, and nervous eye contact—all in the hopes that the other person has all of the same things going on inside as you do.

I never got to know Brenda all that well. I was so introverted and the idea of talking to a girl, after girls had been the enemy (with cooties, no less) for so long, petrified me. I must not have hid it too well because I can remember being teased about liking Brenda. Of course, I flatly denied it, but now, more than 30 years later, I admit it. Brenda was my first crush.

Other posts in this series:

• Series Explanation
• First Best Friend
• First Dog
  

Series of Firsts: First Dog

Growing up, my family only had two dogs, both of them were named Toby. We got the first Toby when I was really young—maybe five or six. He was a black mutt who must have had quite a bit of poodle in him. To my knowledge, no pictures were ever taken of Toby. If they existed at one time, I never seen them, which is sort of sad. Unfortunately, Toby didn’t last very long. He died shortly after we got him. I was so young that I can’t remember the exact reason he died.

But today, I want to tell you about Toby II. Yeah, I know this is a series about firsts, but it’s hard to write about your first dog when you hardly remember him. So, I’m going to write about the first dog I can remember.

Toby II was a toy dachshund. He was hyper beyond words. He chewed up furniture. He ran through the house like somebody had set his tail on fire. And he liked to bark. Eventually, my mom gave him an entire room in the basement to prevent him from destroying everything on the main floor. Toby loved going outside every day. I spent many summer nights in the backyard chasing him around and trying to figure out what animal had caught his attention and caused him to bark incessantly.

He also had a habit of carrying off anything he could get into his mouth. One day, my grandfather was in my backyard fixing something when he turned around in time to see Toby carrying his hammer off. We had a fenced in backyard, but catching Toby still wasn’t easy. Grandpa eventually got his hammer back and then Toby carried off another one of his tools. I won’t repeat what he said here, but let’s just say he wasn’t happy. But I’m pretty sure he was smiling as he recounted the story for my mom.

Toby also had a thing for winter. He loved it. In hindsight, maybe he just loved being outdoors. Either way, my entire family used to get such a laugh out of Toby trying to plow through the snow in our backyard. His legs were just a couple of inches long, but he looked like he walked on top of the snow. I think his little legs were moving so fast that he didn’t give them time to sink in the snow. But at times, he took on bigger snow drifts than a dog his size should have. I started feeling sorry for him and began shoveling paths for him all over the backyard. I always dug one all the way to the back of the yard so he could get close to the alley—his preferred place—so he could bark at cats and squirrels. Then I’d dig offshoot paths for him. He loved it so much that it was hard to get him to come in sometimes.

Toby had a good life, and he gave my family many good moments. He died when he was 13 or 14 years old. Sadly, I don’t think we have any photos of him either. It just wasn’t something I thought about back in those days. But in my mind, he’ll always be my first dog.

Series of Firsts: First Best Friend

There’s something about being a kid that makes you not only choose a “best” friend, but also to proclaim it to the world. I guess it’s a combination of not understanding diplomacy while at the same time doing everything with reckless abandon. But that’s just what you do when you are eight.

When I was eight, my parents divorced and that meant change. My mom, my sister, and I went from living in a large new home that my parents built to living in a smaller home in an older neighborhood. It was the same neighborhood my mom grew up in and from what she described not much had changed over the years. It was still a good place to raise kids, but you just had to make sure you didn’t wander across an elderly person’s yard. If you did, you were going to be yelled at. I adjusted to that pretty quickly.

My previous house was in a neighborhood that was set off the beaten track and there weren’t any kids to play with. That wasn’t the case with the older, more established neighborhood my family moved into. Not long after we moved, I met a kid about my age named Willie. He lived just a few houses away. We had similar interests (cars, baseball cards, sports in general, and cub scouts) and we quickly became friends. Before long, we were referring to each other as best friends.

He had a killer hot wheel collection, but it wasn’t just something you looked at. An eight-year-old boy doesn’t have much use for that. It was something to be experienced, and boy did we ever experience it. His house sat up on a hill, so we’d connect hot wheel tracks and run them all the way down the front porch stairs and then the main stairs. Then we’d set up a tournament bracket (much like the ones used during March Madness) and have the cars compete against each other. He always rooted for the 43 car. I must have had a favorite, but I can’t remember. What I do remember is rooting against the 43 car. But we had a blast.

I spent many weekends at Willie’s house—even after his family moved a couple of miles away. As we got older, we started watching and then playing tennis. His new house was close to tennis courts and we spent hour after hour on those courts. At first, we were terrible (I had to hit my serves off the bounce rather than tossing the ball in the air), but we practiced like time didn’t matter because when you are 12, it doesn’t. Eventually we were able to sustain rallies. By then, we’d already chosen our favorite tennis players and we tried to imitate them. Willie was an Ivan Lendl fan, so he’d put sawdust in his pockets to absorb the sweat on his racquet handle just like Lendl did. I was a John McEnroe fan, so I tried to master the art of putting spin on the ball and I came to the net a lot, just like McEnroe did.

Willie started noticing girls before I did. Well, I noticed, but I was too shy to do anything more than notice. After entering high school, we drifted apart for various reasons, some of which were my fault, and some of which were his. But the truth is, not all friendships are meant to last a lifetime. Sometimes they are meant for a season. And for a season, we were best friends.

Series of Firsts

Over the years, I’ve written a couple of posts here at Little Nuances about firsts. My first car, etc. But I’ve been thinking about doing a series of posts, maybe once a week or so, about firsts. Beyond that, I’d love to see other bloggers pick up the idea and run with it because I’d love to read your stories.

Help me to brainstorm about ideas for posts. Here is what I have so far:

• First best friend
• First crush
• First pet
• First record player/cassette player/CD player
• First album/CD/cassette
• First kiss
• First school
• First high school memory
• First high school dance
• First sporting event (as a spectator)
• First sport/activity (as a participant)
• First hobby
• First favorite song
• Fist favorite album
• First favorite group/singer
• First favorite author
• First favorite book
• First favorite actor
• First favorite movie
• First computer
• First blog
• First job
• First paycheck
• First concert

Add more firsts in the comment section.

My First Road Trip

Continuing with our Top Ten Tuesday series, here’s another one of my favorite all-time moments. This one occurred in 1984, just like the post from last week—only this event occurred a few months earlier—shortly before I started college. At the age of 17, I filled a cooler full of pop, and stuffed my duffel bag with a few days worth of clothes, and I carefully studied the road atlas before embarking on my first ever solo road trip. I was about to drive from Omaha to St. Louis to visit my dad, sister and stepmother.

The route looked easy enough. I only had to take three interstates to get there. Rather than trying to find my dad’s house, he told me to meet him in the parking lot at a hotel called Noah’s Arc in St. Charles, Missouri, just off Interstate 70. I think it was a Best Western. He told me that I couldn’t miss it because it had fake giraffes and various other animals sticking out of the roof.

I pounded the pops on the way there and simply enjoyed my freedom. If there’s anything like a 17 year-old on his first road trip, I don’t know what it is. As I got close to the eastern edge of the state, I knew I should be entering St. Charles soon. Sure enough, I did, and shortly thereafter I saw Noah’s Arc on my right. I exited and drove into the parking lot to look for my dad. I was a tad bit early, and I didn’t see his car, but I figured I take a peek inside to see if he was there. I walked through the hotel lobby and I didn’t see him. I tried calling him a few times from a pay phone in the hotel but he didn’t answer.

I went back to the car and accidentally drifted off to sleep. I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up when I heard somebody tapping on my window—which just about scared me to death. I looked up and there was Dad. Turns out, he was parked on the other side of the hotel and had been waiting for me over there. Don’t ask me why I didn’t look over there or what took him so long to find me, I have no idea. I was just happy to see him and even happier that my first road trip was a success.

First Car Memories

I traveled across the state of Nebraska today in my new (to me) car. It’s the first long trip I’ve taken it on since I purchased it in February. It did just fine, but as the miles rolled by, I wondered about the previous owner(s)—specifically the original owner. Was it his or her first car? If so, what sort of stories are they telling about it now?

My first car was a Mazda RX4. I can’t remember the year it was manufactured, but I think it was 1974. Unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of the car, but I found a photo online that sort of looks like it. It looked like this—without all of the fancy stuff…and it was gray rather than burnt orange. My Dad found it for me somewhere.

The car cost $800.00. I saved $400.00 of my own money and my grandfather gave me the other $400.00. The year would have been 1982 or 1983. And I can remember that a feeling of absolute freedom washed over me the first time I got into it and drove somewhere by myself. I think I went to Kmart. It wasn’t exactly a cross-country trip, or to the local drag racing strip, but hey, you can still feel free on a drive to Kmart.

The car had major mechanical problems—mostly consisting of shorts in the electrical wiring. I’d get one short fixed, like in the radio wiring, and then the heater wouldn’t work. I’d get that fixed, and then something else wouldn’t work. On and on it went. Turned out that the guy I chose to fix the car (a mechanic that my family used for many many years) didn’t really know how to fix foreign cars. I should have figured that out sooner.

I didn’t have the car long, but I loved it. I loved the feeling it game me. I loved how the steering wheel felt in my hand. And I loved the way it handled. I had nothing to compare it to, but that didn’t matter to me. I hated to let the car go, but eventually a guy offered me a good price because he wanted to use it for parts. He owned a car just like it and was having a difficult time finding parts for it. So, it worked out in the end.

Periodically, I’d see the car sitting in his drive way and it would evoke all sorts of great first car memories. Then, one day, after several years had passed, I drove by and it was gone. Surely, it ended up in a salvage yard somewhere—never to be heard from or admired again.

Aren’t first car memories fun?