More Than Just a Driving Lesson

While I was in high school, I learned to drive a stick shift for my summer job. I kept the old Ford truck in first gear while the wranglers at the ranch where I worked loaded hay onto the trailer I was pulling. We went so slow that I could secure the steering wheel in one position, leave the driver’s seat, and help to heft the rich, green bales of alfalfa onto the trailer. I loved being out in the fields, where the birds flitted about the grass until we grew close, and we could watch the summer storms approach from over the mountains near Yellowstone to the west. 

When we left the fields after our last load of hay, we returned to the guest ranch, where my tasks changed quite a bit. There, I drove an old Scout International that carried fresh bedding and towels for the guest cabins; I admired the Scout for its very particular gear selector. Sometimes I would get it right away, and other times it took a little longer to find the sweet spot that was second gear. It was a reward when the ostrich-neck lever didn’t vibrate or grind, and the RPMs settled with gratitude. I learned to love what driving a stick shift represented during those summers: a connection to and a relationship with what I was driving, and a sense of power and control that encapsulated the spirit and freedom of living and working in the wild west. Not just anyone could drive that relic if they hadn’t gotten to know it first.

Clinton left behind his car, a stick shift, when he passed. Different from the old 1978 Ford truck that he had been working on with Walker, this car has six gears and a very sensitive clutch. It has too much power and goes too fast. I didn’t feel right having Walker learn to drive on anything else, but at the same time, I dreaded the fact that our teenage son would soon take on a vehicle that was purchased by a grown man with an extensive and experienced driving history. As a mechanical engineer, it was almost sacrilege for Clinton to drive anything but a manual, and so Walker and I found ourselves on an incline at his very first red light, the very first day of his driving lesson.

We were quiet when the driving lesson started. It wasn’t lost on us that we were doing something big–something Clinton and Walker had thought about doing together. They would have discussed the engine and the best ways to get better gas mileage. They would have been father and son, together on the open road, enjoying the right of passage that comes with turning 15.

The car stalled. Walker looked over at me–cheeks flushed, panic on his face. We started sliding backwards. “Brakes!” I yelled as we closed in on the distance to the car behind us. Walker was quick, and he spared us an accident by a mere inch. But we weren’t out of the woods yet–he needed to restart the car and get it into first gear. On a hill. I can’t remember if the drivers behind us honked, but it didn’t matter:  the apple doesn’t fall far after all, and Walker soon steered us towards the less-populated dirt roads of northeastern Colorado.

A few exhales, some wasboard bumps, and numerous no trespassing signs later, we were well on our way down a dirt road that belonged to a farm, that belonged to a man, who was clearly intent on prosecuting anybody who set foot, much less four warm tires with nowhere to turn, on his land. And there he was, on top of a Tractor and headed towards us.

“Turn around!” I whisper-yelled, trying to read the man’s face from afar–trying to see if he was ready to exercise his Second Amendment rights. He was a large man with arms the size of our legs, and if he stood up, he would have been our combined height.

“I can’t!” Walker whisper-yelled back, “There’s nowhere to go!” The car stalled.         

Soon, the man was upon us. His thick beard disguised any expression on his face. I rolled down the window, “Sorry, Sir!” I smiled, “We didn’t mean to come down this way.” I nodded towards Walker, “Driving lesson.”

The tractor stuttered to a stop as the man, perfectly clad in really Big and Tall overalls and with a lower lip full of tobacco, assessed the situation. He looked at Walker, who was quiet in the driver’s seat. He looked at me, then, at Walker again. His big, white teeth broke the symmetry of his beard as he smiled, “You gonna pull some chicks in that thing, ain't cha?” And with that, his laugh started with the tractor as he waved us off and drove away. In the tractor’s wake, a big gust of wind blew into the fence, and into the line of No Trespassing signs that were swinging and clanging while Walker backed seamlessly down the long, dirt road.

The drive home was less heavy. I thought about our interaction with the farmer and why it meant more than that stranger could ever know. Pulling chicks aside, that farmer made me realize just how much life my children still have ahead of them. And I am here to see it. There is so much they have yet to do, and experience, and figure out, and I am amazed at how much all of them have chased their own version of joy since losing their dad. Not to mention, Walker is an incredible driver now; his dad would be so proud.