I have posted a couple of times about the 1961 Rambler American that I bought for my wife while I was in Denver, Colorado. Once I had all of the bugs and maintenance problems in the car fixed, it was time to start teaching my wife how to drive. I figured we would try to drive on city streets near the outskirts of town where there was very little traffic. So, I drove way out to the outskirts of town and stopped. I got out of the car and changed places with my wife. I told her first to adjust the mirrors so that she could see from both of them. Then, I asked her to make sure that the seat was comfortable and that she could reach the gas pedal and the brake pedal comfortably. Next, I spent some time going over the vehicle controls such as the gear shift indicators, the signal lights, the headlight switch, the dimmer switch for the headlights, and the instrument cluster. I spent some time describing the various gauges on the instrument cluster and what to watch for. Then, I told her to put the car in gear. I told her to ease her foot off of the brake and onto the gas while checking the mirrors and looking over her shoulder for oncoming traffic. I told her to proceed when it was safe to do so. She pulled away from the curb very slowly and started moving down the street. A car came up behind her and became very impatient and started laying on the horn. Beep! Beep! Beep! That shook my wife up. She stopped the car dead. She was shaking like a leaf. Try as I might, I couldn’t make her move. She told me, “Take me home.” I said to her, “But you have to learn how to drive.” “I’m scared. Take me home.” Well, that wasn’t going to work. I had to find a place away from everything to teach her how to drive. So, I asked around. People told me about an old Air Force Base that was no longer used called Buckley Air Force Base. And they told me how to get there. They said there were virtually no buildings and nothing but the airfield. I said, “that would be perfect.” When I went out there with my wife, it was even better than I had hoped. The airbase consisted of runways, taxiways, approaches, and support vehicle roads. There was one building on the entire airfield. The building was off to one side on one of the approaches. It was not in the way. The odds of hitting it were very slim. I thought, “This is the perfect driving environment.” She could even practice taking the car up to speed and slowing back down on the long runway. This was the ideal driver’s training course. I took her over to the taxi Lane area and told her that we were going to practice turns first. I had her spend a couple of hours doing nothing but turns. I had her do left turns and right turns. I had her perform stop and go maneuvers. I had her practice going around curves and slowing down and speeding up. And then we called it a day. The next day, we went right back out there. I had her practice driving up and down the runway. I had her do it slowly at first. Once she got comfortable driving up and down the runway, I had her start to speed up. I wanted to get her to get up to 55 miles per hour. We had enough runway to do that. Once she was comfortable driving the car at speed, I had her take it up to 55 miles per hour and then slow down. I had her back up for a distance to improve her backing accuracy. I wanted to get her used to the idea of driving near other objects. It was too soon to try driving in traffic. But there was that one building. It was just one building. What could it hurt? A lot, as it turned out. I thought, “What are the odds? After all, it’s only one building.” One building, or 100 buildings, it wouldn’t have mattered. She would’ve found a way to hit it. And hit it, she did. I stressed to her, “When you go by this building, give it plenty of space. You have plenty of space. The approach is wide enough for five or six cars. Hell, it can hold more than that. Cuz it can hold a plane. If it can hold a plane without hitting that building, you can drive down it without hitting that building. I drove first to show her what I wanted her to do. Then, I told her to do the same thing. Well, theory is perfect, and hindsight is 2020. And logic said she should have been able to drive down that approach free and clear with no problem. Well, that’s what logic said. But logic didn’t know shit. There could have been 20 feet of clearance, there could’ve been 200 feet of clearance, there could’ve been two miles of clearance, or there could have been 20 miles of clearance. It wouldn’t have mattered. She was going to hit that building one way or the other. That was all there was to it. Once I told her to pass that building without hitting it, it had been etched in stone. She was going to hit that building. Come hell or high water, that building was going down. No. She didn’t knock the building over. After she hit it, the building was still standing. In fact, she didn’t even cave in a wall. She didn’t even do that much damage to the car. Yeah. She scratched it a little. But I don’t think you could tell. I didn’t buy that car for its looks. I bought the car because I expected it to get a few dings and dents. I mean, with greenhorns, you got to know their limitations. You also got to expect a little bit of damage. And did you know that cars back then were built like tanks. They were solid metal. Now, if she had hit that building with my formerly owned Dodge Omni, that goddamn car would have folded like an accordion because it was nothing, but a goddamn beer can on wheels. And I don’t think I would have liked the tune it would have played. That’s the major problem with newer cars. They wrinkle and fold and collapse like beer cans. Mainly cuz they’re made primarily out of plastic and aluminum. Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway, after she hit the building, my wife was understandably rattled. I spent the rest of that day, calming her back down with soothing drives up and down the long runway. It took three solid weeks of driving at that abandoned Air Force Base before my wife was ready to tackle driving in the streets. When we tried driving in light traffic, I had to start at the outskirts of town and gradually move to more populated areas as she gained confidence. When the day came for her to attempt to take the test for her Colorado driver’s license, she was all nerves. I had grilled her and quizzed her on the written test. I thought she was well prepared for that. It was the driving test that she was worried about. When she took the written test, she passed. She was so thrilled. I cannot explain the joy and the excitement she had. When it came time for the driving test, she drew an elderly gentleman. He would not let me ride along. But they weren’t gone more than 10 minutes. When they got back, he said, “Your wife passed but she needs lots of practice.” I asked, “Could you give me an idea what sorts of skills to work on?” “She just needs lots and lots of practice.” “Oh yes Sir. I take her to this abandoned Air Force Base over in Aurora every day to practice.” “That’s good cuz she needs lots and lots and lots of practice.” “Okay. Thank you sir.” Then, we left. My wife had passed her driving test. I got the message loud and clear, she needed lots and lots and lots and lots of practice. And lots of Band-Aids for cars. Were Band-Aids for cars even a thing? Hmmmm? I’d have to check into that. Band-Aids for cars. Thus, my wife avoided what could have been a disastrous exercise in futility by passing her Colorado driver’s license examination.
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