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.

#88 Wall Art

Continuing with the 100 life-enriching little nuances series ...

When I was a kid, my grandparents had a house on an acreage with a wooded area behind it. A small underground stream cut through it. My grandpa, and sometimes my dad, took me down into the woods on Saturdays and we walked the land. They told me about various animals and birds we saw and sometimes my grandpa pointed out subtle differences he saw in the land over the years.

When I got old enough, they let me bring me bring my BB gun and I’d shoot at cans or birds as we walked. I wasn’t the only kid enjoying the land though. Occasionally, we’d come across an area in which a kid had set up a mini-camping area and left behind traces of the fun he had. Grandpa seemed to make a mental note and I knew he would be keeping an eye on the area.

I was always drawn toward the little stream. It didn’t cover a lot of land, and best I could tell, it didn’t contain any fish. I just liked the sound it made and I was fascinated by its existence. One winter, my grandpa and I took a walk in the woods. For some reason, I picked up a long stick and used it as a walking stick. The stream was frozen over and I took a short jaunt over the ice. I slipped and fell, jamming the stick into one of my eyes.

Grandpa got me back to the house. He was more upset than I’d ever seen him. I think he was upset with himself more than anything, but I don’t know how you keep a kid from being a kid in a setting like that. I can’t remember what the doctor said at the hospital, but I do remember wearing a patch over my eye for quite a while. After it came off, my eye was fine.

During another trip to the woods, my dad pointed at what we thought was an owl in a tree. Then, as we studied it, we thought it might be a dove. I know, they looking nothing alike. Then we laughed about our lack of wilderness knowledge. But it didn’t matter, because we were hanging out in the woods together. What more could a boy ask for from his father on a Saturday afternoon?

After my parents divorced, my mom, my sister and I moved. Mom bought a painting for our living room of a meandering stream that cut through a patch of trees in the middle of fall. The leaves had already turned to orange, red and yellow. And, of course, the painting became a gentle reminder of those Saturday afternoons in the woods. 

I still have that painting. It’s hanging in my living room.

The Fall Television Schedule

With baseball season nearly over (for Royals’ fans), I always look forward to the fall. My bowling league starts anew, I read more books and life just seems to slow down.

During my downtime, I enjoy the fall television season. As is normally the case, some of the shows I like got the axe, a few of my shows are headed into their final season, and I’m going to give one new show a shot.

Got the Axe:

• Gary Unmarried: The final episode of second season, which turned out to be the series finale, couldn’t have been a worse place to end the series. Gary learned he was still married to Allison and the show ended with us not finding out whether he chose to stay with her or stay with Sasha, whom he had been dating. Yeah, it was a classic case of the hokey mix up that is common in sitcoms, but I still hate not knowing.
  
• FlashForward: Started with a great concept, and initially it made for some interesting character dilemmas, but producers began to focus so heavily on the convoluted plot, that it began to lose my interest. By the series finale this past May, I found myself not caring if the show returned or not. When I learned there would be another flash forward in the series finale, I knew I probably wouldn’t watch the show, even if it returned.
  

The Final Countdown:

• Friday Night Lights: The new and final season starts on October 27 on DirecTV. This is one of my favorite shows and I hate to see it go. I love the Friday night small town football atmosphere. I love the character arcs. I love the plot lines. I love the acting. How can this show possibly be heading into its final season?
• One Tree Hill: I watched the first two seasons on DVD and was really bummed when I caught up the episodes during Season Three. Much like FNL, I love the small town sports atmosphere. And I feel like I know these characters. Even with Lucas and Peyton no longer on the show, I’m still interested finding out what happens to Brooke, Mouth, Skills, Nathan and Haley and even some of the newer characters. I have a feeling this will be the final season. At this point, I’m just hoping the series ends well.
• My Boys: What’s not to like about P.J., Andy, Bobby, Brendan, Mike, Kenny and Stephanie? I love how close these characters are. I love the way they deal with modern technology (the Facebook episode was classic). And I love their traditions (poker night, their annual game decathlon). Sunday night may have been the series finale (no announcements have been made one way or the other) and if it was, I wasn’t ready for it to go.

Settling In:

• Parenthood: It’s back for the second season and I’ll watch it. I almost gave up while watching the pilot last season, but by the second episode the Braverman family dynamic reeled me in. I wouldn’t be too upset if it gets canceled after this season, but having said that, only shows I love get canceled, so this one should be okay for years to come.
• Men of a Certain Age: The second second starts in December. I’ve already written about this show. I’m just hoping we are allowed to follow the lives of Joe, Owen and Terry for seasons to come.

Newbie:

• Running Wilde: I don’t have high hopes for this one, but Felicity was one of my favorite shows and Keri Russell is in Running Wilde, so I’ll give it a shot. The way the trailers are portraying Steve – the son of an oil tycoon who doesn’t appear to have any concern for anyone but himself – seems too cliche, but if Emmy changes and grows as Steve does, then I’m in.

Fried Mush

A while back, a few of my friends and I were talking about different food dishes we’ve eaten that aren’t all that common – at least to us. Mush was my contribution to the conversation. I could not really tell them what mush is, other than fried cornmeal, but even if that is all it is, it would probably still be good.

Through the magic of Google, I found out that mush really is pretty much just fried cornmeal (mixed with water and salt), but somehow, it’s mushy inside. Check out this post on a blog called “the frugal girl” for a picture and the recipe.

One of my grandmas was from the south. Mush was one of the many things from her heritage she treated us to. She would drag out her fry daddy, fill it with grease of some sort, and drop pieces of uncooked mush into the gurgling abyss. It hissed in pleasure and made our mouths water. One of my sisters and I could hardly wait for her to dip out the mush and set it on the table.

“It’s hot!” she would say. “Be careful.”

So, we would use the sort of bite in which you use your teeth but you move your lips out of the way. If you ever saw the episode of Friends from Season Seven called "The One With The Engagement Picture" during which Chandler could not smile in front of a camera so he did a fake smile with his teeth showing, then you'll know what I'm talking about. Anyway, if it didn’t leave a third degree burn, we would wolf it down.

Milk was the drink of choice, but you had to be careful because Grandma preferred butter milk and that meant she thought you should prefer it too. So she would slip a glass in front of you if you weren’t looking just to see what type of reaction she could get as the clumps of gunk (what is that stuff, anyway?) present in butter milk slid down your throat. A nice tall glass of cold 2% milk was the perfect complement to the piping hot mush.

I miss those days.

New Look

The design here at Little Nuances had a 2006, Web 1.0 feel to it until this morning. To make the blog easier to navigate, I changed the template. The new look also has wider columns, which feels better to me. I felt restricted by the narrow(er) columns. And the new background image, showing old black and white photographs – well, it just seems to fit the nostalgic tone here.

Is God the Last Romantic?

Over the Rhine is playing in Omaha tonight. Over the years, they have slowly climbed the rank of my favorite bands and as of now, they sit at the very top.

In preparation for their concert, I’ve been working my way through their catalogue on my iPod. The other night, as I listened to “Live from Nowhere, Vol. 1,” the song “Spark” spoke to me:

Obsessions with self-preservation
Faded when I threw my fear away
It’s not a thing you can imagine

You either lose your fear
Or spend your life with one foot in the grave
Is God the last romantic?

I can’t get that question out of my head.

The song connects the shunning of self-preservation with romance. It’s safer to feel nothing than to risk the chance of being hurt by someone we love, but in essence, feeling nothing is living with one foot in the grave.

Contrast that with the way God loves. He woos us, and courts us and draws us to himself, knowing full well we’re going to shun him, reject him and deny him.