I've always thought I've led a fairly vanilla life. No apologies - it's pretty much reflective of where and how I was raised and I've come to terms with the fact that there haven't been a lot of BIG exciting things that have happened on my journey (so far). There are a few exceptions, though.
When I was fifteen years old I was able to get my driver's learner permit. I was signed up for driver's ed at the high school I attended and I fully expected my parents to let me do practice driving as often as possible. Wrong.
My dad was an over-the-road semi truck driver. He made round trip runs from Chicago to Battle Creek, or Kalamazoo, Michigan five nights a week and saw plenty of car accidents throughout the years. I'm sure in his mind he projected my face on to the identity of each of the drivers in those accidents. My mom was a little more laid back on the subject of me driving, but she had already abdicated her involvement in my learning to drive to my dad who was a "professional."
We had a maroon Ford Galaxy back then. For some reason, my dad was a die hard Ford man and we always had some variation of one of their boring cars - Falcon, Galaxy, and so forth. Since my dad was nearly 26 years older than my mom, we had already missed the window for him to go through a mid-life crisis and buy a red Mustang or (gasp) even a Chevy. I really hadn't thought about the car itself too much, because it was really only a means to an end - the vehicle that would help teach me to drive.
I was doing pretty well in driver's ed at school. The instructor we had, one of the school's science teachers, wore lime cologne and made us listen to country music while we drove, softly singing along to songs I'd never heard. It made me a little car sick. I was, however, a parallel parker par excellence. The instructor said if they gave out medals for parallel parking, I'd be the first one in line to have one pinned on my coat - he'd never seen anyone do such a fine job.
I tried using that as leverage with my dad. He relented a little and took me practice driving in the high school parking lot. Round and round we'd go: in the front entrance, back to the pool entrance and all the way back around to the front again. Over and over and over. I longed for open road driving and constantly pestered my dad for a chance. "Not quite yet," he'd say. "Soon."
My sixteenth birthday was approaching in four short months. I felt comfortable driving out in traffic because of driver's ed, so I was reasonably sure that my official driver's license was just a few months away.
Then, one mid-summer day, everything changed. My parents had gone to trade in the Galaxy for the current year's model earlier in the day. When they finally came home, my mom was smiling and my dad tossed the new set of keys in my direction. "Want to take the new car for a spin?" he asked. Never one to turn down a chance to drive - especially a brand new car, I grabbed my wallet and headed out the front door with him.
In the driveway, instead of another nondescript Galaxy, there stood a sleek and proud gold Gran Torino with a sporty fastback and (be still my heart) racing stripes! I couldn't have been more surprised if I'd found James Bond's Aston Martin in the driveway. This was ours??? And I could actually drive it?
We drove up and down the streets of my hometown that day and many more that followed. I felt special and noticed - feelings that were a bit foreign to me. Something in the magic of that car made my dad lose some of his fear that I'd get in an accident and he took me driving frequently. I really believe that car also gave me more confidence in myself. It also made me realize that my parents still had the ability to surprise me, which was a bit of a surprise in itself.
Yes, for the most part my life is still vanilla (unless you count two sets of twins as exciting...).
Oh, there have been some exciting times and memorable ones, too, but that summer day that I slid into the front seat of the gold Gran Torino and turned the key in the ignition ranks up there with the memories that I cherish the most.
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