It’s not exactly Mother’s Day, but stumbling into this picture of an American suburban family in 1956 out for a little family bonding time in their Model T (grandpa’s?) reminded me of two things. One, how utterly impossible this scene would have been in my family. And two, if it had happened, how glad I would have been to have my mom at the wheel instead of my dad.
My father had a very unfortunate ability to put any and every rider in the car with him ill at ease, and that didn’t just end with family members. But my mother, although she didn’t learn to drive until we moved to the US in 1960 when she was almost forty, quickly became a relaxed and natural driver. On our memorable long-distance summer vacation trips, we’d all let out a collective sigh when my father handed the wheel over to her. Even then, he’d constantly be scanning the speedometer, traffic, and not relax. So there’s no one moment that jumps out at me; just the collective memories of those times when I was alone with her at the wheel, the sense of security and ease that was so utterly missing with him at the wheel. I learned that driving/riding could actually be a pleasant time, not a fraught one. Which is perhaps the most important one of all.
Most memorable has to be the time my Mom fell asleep at the wheel of our ’57 Belair. We were on vacation in New England, and my Mom took the wheel on Cape Cod. It was a dreary, overcast day, and my Mom simply nodded off and the car slipped onto the shoulder. Luckily my Dad was very much awake and was able to grab the wheel and avert a disaster. I was probably five or six years old at the time. I’m glad she did not make a habit of falling asleep at the wheel, in spite of her ability to sleep almost anywhere, anytime.
My mom didn’t drive while I grew up. I got my drivers license shortly before she did. One summer, while home from college, she consented to drive my Ford Pinto. Mom is a proper lady who always sits up straight. The Pinto’s front seats at a permanent and fairly steep lean backward. She drove about a block trying to set up right with the seatback a foot behind her when she declared this to be the dumbest car ever, stopped it, and got out.
Mom never really did drive much. Fast-forward 30 years, and my dad is recovering after losing a lung to cancer. He is frankly afraid of his own death, and worried about his wife who still really doesn’t drive. So he asked me to take her out in his minivan and teach her. She hated the minivan – it was way too big for her. We managed to drive it around a church parking lot a couple times before she got frustrated and that was that.
My first drive.
My mama hit a Fawn with her 95 Voyager when it had 800 miles on it and I could have been killed by the airbag which scared her and pissed her off.
Around 2000 she was selling her 1970 Dart and I hid the keys from her for a few days.
She did a great job of driving dad’s 87 Saab 900 around during winter and busting through some impressive drifts. One Spring while on a dirt road she screamed and swerved while braking at the last moment which meant a Ford Tempo dented the Saab’s quarter panel instead of caving in the driver’s door.
She patient helped teach me to drive on her 05 Sedona and taught me to pump the brakes when slowing in case the brakes had failed among other useful techniques. She also lent me her 95 Voyager with a dead radio for my driving test which was handy since the instructor tried turning on the radio at least once.
That photo with the Model T is amazing and funny, how fast do you think they were going?
Mom was an interesting driver. I never felt unsafe with her driving. however she had certain ideas regarding same. She was a 5’3″ auburn haired spitfire behind the wheel of her blue Grand Prixs. yes, plural, and always in a shade of Blue. The stop sign at the end of our street, she never fully stopped for as she reasoned she had just gotten moving and as long as no one was coming…why stop? As for as parking, that was the reason why my family was the first to adopt the large Rubbermaid style of trash cans. The galvanized metal ones would be smacked out of shape in a short time as that is how she gauged how far she was in her stall in the garage, when she smacked the trash can, she would stop as that was the sign she was in far enough. The big plastic cans were more forgiving and when she would ‘Burp” the thing (the lid would pop up with an audible “Foomp”) that worked as well. She loved her Pontiacs. as a matter of fact, her first GP, a 63 had the letter “D” on the front fender installed upside down, dad was willing to take it back to the dealer and have it installed correctly. Mom refused. Said she liked it. like a little kid had written it. She was just a little heavy on the gas. but not dangerously so. Never got a ticket. Once a cop pulled her over after we had come down a large hill in the neighborhood…. Cop walks up, says, Howdy, ma’am… Do you know what the speed limit is here on this stretch? Mom turns to look up the road at the speed limit sign..says. ‘Oh. I guess it’s 35, while smiling sweetly and flashing her green eyes…..No ticket. Yeah I learned a lot form my moms driving. but I am a guy so a lot of it won’t work.
I’m going with the very first thing that entered my mind.
The old Mississippi River bridge in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was built in 1927 and was likely designed for vehicles the width of the Model T above. It was just under one mile long. Each of its two lanes was about 10′ wide and two tractor trailers meeting each other would often have their mirrors kiss in a big fashion.
Anyway, one day mom is driving the ’84 F-150 across the bridge about 40 mph on a warm day with the windows down. Midway, I hear this “thwack-thwack-thwack” from my right. The outside rear-view mirror was very near the handrail and the thwack was coming from the mirror hitting the bolt heads that extruded from the handrail.
A source of contention between my parents is that my mother drove well enough to shuttle me and my younger sister but not well to drive my father anywhere.
The time she and my father had an argument and she left him behind in a parking lot. This is before cell phones. We circled back in about 15 minutes and got him. They said little to me, let alone each other, for the reminder of that day.
In general: her driving timidity in situations where assertiveness was practically mandatory to accomplish a goal like changing lanes to get to a left hand exit.
My memory comes from driving down a steep winding hill south of Seattle, on which the brakes on the old ‘50s Ford would howl.
We drove down that hill frequently, so all of us kids knew it was coming and would (along with my mother) howl in unison with the car!
I was 5 and my mom was taking me to a friends house. We came across the railroad tracks and the gates began to go down when she was already on the tracks. She stopped because the other ones in front of us went down quicker and we were blocked in. Luckily, it was a three track railroad crossing and the train was on the furthest rail from us. The back of the car only got a scratch from the gate. Another time, my mom was driving down a street in the summertime taking me back from driving school. The road was under construction and there was construction barrels covering the exposed sewer grates by the curbing. I was warning her she was getting too close to them on my side, as soon as I said that she knocked the mirror off of the car. From driving with my mom when I was younger I learned to be aware of my surroundings when driving. As I sit her writing this it’s sort of a bitter sweet moment. The car in which all of these events occurred was our 1997 Dodge Intrepid my parents have owned since new. The amount of memories I have in that car are immense. They’re sadly selling it on Monday for a new car.
Mom was being taught to drive by Dad on the rural roads of South Dakota .
The time ? Probably about 1960. The car? A green 1952 Cadillac Sedan.
The passengers in the back seat? My older brother ,older sister, and 5 year old me.
My memory of Moms driving lesson that day ,was that she was quite nervous,and Dad was short tempered.
The lesson came to a abrupt end, when she misjudged a turn into a farmers driveway, causing the rear of the Cadillac to end up in the ditch.
My brother and sister thought this hilarious, Mom not so much.
Dad drove the Cadillac back home, and until her passing in 1997 Mom relied on Dad , a Taxi, or her children whenever a ride was needed.
Early in my grandparent’s marriage (around 1950), my grandfather was teaching my grandmother to drive. At that time, they lived at the bottom of a hill in South Boston, and the story I always heard was that one afternoon, just before they were about to go out driving, a delivery truck that was parked at the top of the hill’s breaks went out, causing it to roll downhill and smashed right into my grandfather’s car. I’m not sure of the amount of damage, but it was enough to spook my grandmother enough that she never drove again. For the rest of her life (she passed in 2011), she too relied others for driving, public transportation, or walking, which she did quite a bit of until her final years.
Early ’70’s, Fresno. Dad was stationed there at some Marine outpost. The nearest PX was Castle AFB, about 100 miles away. The car was a ’71 Olds Delta 88 Custom with essentially a W30 motor. Mom NEVER took more than an hour to get there. It was quite the sight, this little bitty housewife charging up and down the 99, the speedo needle wrapped around past the 120 mark, and it was just a grocery run.
Dad pretended to be the macho speed demon. Mom lived it.
Well, my mom taught me how to drive, so… let’s just say there are a lot of memorable experiences.
One from an earlier time that comes to mind in particular was when I was much younger, approximately age 4. It had been raining for several days, and we were down the Cape without much to do in the bad weather. Mom also had my 3 cousins to watch, so to do something fun, she had the idea to take the four of us out in her Jeep and speed through the big puddles on the twisting back roads, creating huge splashes. It was like a Disney World ride. To this day, I always think of that day every time I drive through a huge puddle that creates a projectile splash.
You have a very cool Mom.
When my dad was a regional manager for Texaco throughout the Midwest, we’d drive on a Friday and meet him in whatever city he had flown to for work. Spend the weekend there and all drive home. I remember my mom teaching me how to ask for a “honk” from truckers and the rocking horse being the safe spot in traffic (back when people were more attentive). All in 2 different Sables or dad’s SHO. She did attract a lot of rearenders too (no pun intended)! Now she drives Nana’s car (2011 Explorer Ltd) to see her grandsons 5 hrs away.
I guess I also learned to love the long hauls from her too, as there was someone waiting to see you at the other end.
The only thing that stands out for me is my mother seemed to be a much better driver than most of my friend’s mothers growing up. She never seemed to have trouble handling a car or driving relatively smoothly like the others did. I’m guessing this is because she grew up and learned to drive in rural Appalachia and it’s poor roads, challenging terrain, drunk/angry hillbillies, etc. At 78 her driving is not bad, but she drives too slow for prevailing conditions. She doesn’t drive too much thankfully.
Her main instructions concerning my early driving revolved around “stressing the car out”. She was under the impression that using anything near the full capacity of any of an automobiles systems would lead to something breaking or catching on fire in short order. It wasn’t just acceleration or braking, one was not to use the windshield wipers, heat, air conditioning etc at full blast. 95 degrees in high humidity – no more that half fan speed on the air conditioning. The same in winter with the heat.
We should talk about our wives sometimes …LOL.
Best memory was my mom getting into an impromptu drag race, us in a V8 ForeRunner, versus a STI. We were both stopped at an intersection that went from three lanes to two about a quarter mile ahead. We both took off at a normal pace, then the STI pulled a car length ahead. My mom put her foot down and got past him. I was in the passenger seat and the STI driver shot is a dirty look as he gunned it and went past us. My mom then floored it and got neck and neck with him again. The merge was coming up quick, and the STI driver dropped down a gear and got past us in the nick of time.
My dad and I were laughing hysterically at this point because my mom was angry, and this was way out of character for a normally reserved person.she turned to us and snapped ‘HOW DID I GET BEAT BY SUCH A SHITTY LITTLE CAR?!?’ Once we stoppedd laughing we explained what had happened.
I learned from mom that a yellow traffic light means to mash the accelerator. Dad erroneously thought it meant to slam the brakes.
Most memorable was when Mom was driving me, my little brother, and 2 sisters home from school one fall afternoon. We were less than 1/2 mile from home when we all noticed a farmer driving a tractor out of a corn field directly towards us. Mom hit the horn and brakes at the same time and my brother hit the right half of the windshield (we were in my Mom’s 49 Plymouth with a “split” windshield). The farmer told us he was deaf and couldn’t see us through the rows of corn. I guess because my Mom was a nurse during WW II she wasn’t at all shook. And the car? It needed half a windshield and the right front fender replaced.
My Mom wouldn’t have another accident for 45 years.
Two come to mind. Her blowing stop signs inconveniently placed part way down a real steep hill after the drum brakes in her 61 f85 Oldsmobile faded unto nothingness. The brakes howling, us howling, the rest of traffic howling, and her steely and grim determination not to put us in the rhubarb or clobber anything, while teaching us loudly that our father was apparently several things that we would only come to understand when we were older.
The second was her rather perverse belief that the yield signs on traffic on ramps were actually stop signs, and stopping abruptly ( the Olds was not without some sense of irony ) and getting whacked from traffic in the back end, seemingly unaware of her rooted position in the middle of a merge lane.
There are others, such as her rolling her 62 Nova, but that’s another story…
Long winter days in my mother’s 1986 Plymouth Horizon listening to bad 70’s mom-rock on AM radio while she smoked Salem Slim Lights with the windows rolled up.
My mom was late to driving and was always a nervous driver. At the age of 16 I talked the folks into buying a 1965 Rambler Marlin (327 Flash-O-Matic). My plan was to take my drivers test in this car. By the time I arrived at the DMV my nerves were shattered by her back-seat driving and I did not pass the driving portion of the test!
Mom’s driving must have been pretty average, as I really don’t remember being anxious riding with her, and I don’t recall accidents, tickets or the like.
There is one story from the 1970s that is a family favorite, however. We were driving from Athens, GA to my Grandmother’s on the South side of Atlanta, probably via the old Winder Highway (8). The vehicle was our ’68 Country Squire LTD (390, 4bbl), which was loaded down in the back with numerous dried flower arrangements Mom was planning to sell at a craft show that weekend.
As we were winding our way through a more rural section of road, a guy in a Camaro passed us, waving Mom to pull over, quick!
When we got stopped, he ran back and told us to get away from the car, as he had seen flames shooting underneath… We beat a hasty retreat as black smoke began to roil out from under the hood. The guy tried raising the hood (bad move), and quickly slammed it shut.
As this was going on, a Semi stopped opposite the excitement, and the driver hopped out with a fire extinguisher. When he got close enough to the car to see how bad the fire was, he practically threw the extinguisher to the Camaro guy, and ran back to his truck!
Our Good Samaritan then opened the hood just a bit and emptied the extinguisher onto the fire, which thankfully put it out. About this time, a lady in a Datsun stopped and asked if we needed a ride, so Mom grabbed as many flower arrangements as could fit in the trunk, and we all squeezed in. Mom gave the lady her largest and best arrangement when we got to Granny’s house…
Dad had the car towed to a local mechanic, where the car was cleaned up and rewired. It had two large pink spots on the hood from the heat, and it stayed that way the rest of the time we owned the car.
The car pulled this stunt on us once more a few years later when I went out to start it up prior to Mom driving us to school. I heard a loud pop from up front, followed by smoke, so I ran back in and Dad grabbed the kitchen fire extinguisher and quickly put it out before any real damage was done.
I love this story!
I was always told not to emulate my mother’s driving skills. Grandpa taught her and he was famous for cruising around in second gear.
That being said, she loved VW Bugs, especially driving them through deep puddles. I also just remembered she drove home with our new puppy on her shoulder.
We had an “old” Dodge for a while that was never in proper repair. It would break down in strange spots, but since my mother shared more than a passing resemblance to the mom on “Eight is Enough” she was never stuck for long.
One of the earliest, riding in the front seat of our ’62 Ford Falcon Futura – white over a golden brown. My mom driving in a very light rain along the boulevard that led to our modest but middle class neighborhood. Everything looks very mid-late 1960’s. I’m not even sure it’s quite a real memory, perhaps just a blend of early memories from when I was very young on a familiar route.
My father was never a very good driver, and did not enjoy driving. My mother did enjoy it, and was not bad.
People these days forget that middle-class couples did not necessarily have two cars. Ours was still a single-car family in 1964 or so, when it was decided that my mom should learn to drive. She would have been almost 40 — but, she had the benefit of professional instruction, whereas my dad had learned from his father, perpetuating several generations of bad driving.
Since our car was a 1960 Lark two-door station wagon with a (column) manual shift, my mom had to learn to drive a stick from the start, and she always preferred them. I remember little of her driving the Studebaker, but its California license number was LER 007, a joke as she learned to drive since my parents decided that it stood for “learner with a license to kill.”
I do remember enjoying the drives with her several years later in various loaner automobiles. My cheapskate father had bought a 1966 Buick Special Deluxe at the end of the model year, and had every intention of keeping it for at least a decade (which we did), but when we took it back to the dealer (Putnam Buick in Burlingame) for service during the warranty period, they showered loaners on us, convinced that a doctor’s wife would naturally want a new car every year.
I’ll never forget riding around in the 1967 Wildcat convertible, a beauty with metallic blue paint, a white top, and white seats. Or the ’67 GS 400, black vinyl roof, white paint, red stripe tires. We had to buy gas for that car before returning it to the dealer, and pulling out of the service station, my mom treated the accelerator pedal as if we were in the Special Deluxe, resulting in burnt rubber and black stripes on the pavement. An indelible memory for a ten-year-old, thanks to mom.
You must have grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area – as I did. We bought our 1980 Buick Century sedan from Putnam Buick, which still is in business today.
“Bring your spouse, your pink slip and your checkbook to Putnam Buick” was and is their radio tagline.
Wow, my mom drove for a pretty long time from the late fifties to 2008 and never bent up a car. Didn’t realize that til now, lost her in 2010 because of a series of strokes. She really did do a great job i guess, I learned to always pay attention and to steer behind someone who pulled out in front of you by riding with her.
My mom has always been a pretty good driver, if a bit of a lead foot at times. One memory I have is of riding with her one night on a rural highway in my dad’s ’73 Impala. I was in the front seat and noticed we were doing 90 miles per hour. I though it was kind of cool, and didn’t sweat it until we went over a railway crossing. It had a bit of a rise to it, and we went airborne and bottomed out on the other side. She slowed down a little and said “don’t tell your father!”. As my dad never drove over the speed limit, I’m pretty sure he would have lost it if he’d found out. I thought it was fun, and the Impala seemed none the worse for wear. My dad never did find out, and my mom still drives quite well at 86. She still has a bit of a lead foot, though, and she got pulled over once last summer. The cop, seeing that it was an old lady, told her to slow down and sent her on her way. When she told me about it, I simply reminded her that her car (a 2010 Honda CRV) has a cruise control and left it at that. Needless to say, I probably inherited my love of driving fast on back roads from her.
Shortly after I got my license, I picked up my grandma. We headed south in heavy traffic. There was no traffic northbound. My grandma asked me why I didn’t drive on the other side since there were no cars there. Good thing she didn’t drive.
From my mother, I mostly learned that drunk driving doesn’t work really well.
The first was the one and only time Mom drove a stick shift car, my Dad’s Volvo when her Chrysler was in the shop. Dad taught her fine except they did not practice being on a hill. I couldn’t help her hold the parking brake because it was on the left hand side. There was some cursing and a lot of lurching, that poor clutch!
Lesson: If you teach someone to drive stick don’t forget how to handle a hill.
The second time was when she drove over a rolling brake rotor in the old Cadillac, which replaced the old Chrysler. The rotor hit the oil pan and wiped out the starter. The car was never the same and was soon sold.
Lesson: Avoid, at all costs, driving over something that will hit your oil pan.
The third was in the old Mercedes, which replaced the old Cadillac. On a hot day with the AC on the car overheated and white smoke came out the back. It was a blown head gasket which warped the head.
Lessons: 1. Always watch your temp gauge in an old Mercedes, esp. with the AC on. 2. High strung European engines are more likely to blow a head gasket. 3. Alloy heads warp easily.
i love my Mother but she is a TERRIBLE driver and has left her mark on every car she has ever owned. However I digress, in spite of meeting several other drivers in less than ideal circumstances….the memory that lingers is when she wanted to learn to drive a standard so I gave her lessons in my car….my ’69 Hemi Road Runner with a 3800lb lock out custom composite ceramic clutch. The only car I ever saw her drive well.. That’s my Mom!!
Years later… my kids could tell you some stories about their mother……. yeah she learned in the Road Runner as well and never looked back…really …never..
In the late 50s, my mother learned to drive in the family`s `52 Caddy. My father`s friend was a driving instructor, and he was making my mother parrarel park under 86th St in Brooklyn,NY under the elevated subway.She did OK on the park, but she gave the Caddy too much gas in reverse, and she hit one of the subway pillars with the rear bumper. The car had only a few minor scratches on the bumper, but she took a big chunk of concrete out of the pillar. I was about six years old, and I remember the incident vividly because I went along for the ride with them. My mom was a good driver and was able to drive any size car, zipped in and out of traffic like a champ, but she hated to drive on the highway and couldnt drive a manual shift She liked to take our dog with her because the dog loved the car, but the dog refused to sit in the back seat. She always said that the most important safety feature in a car was the horn.Can`t disagree with her on that.
I have posted this pic a couple time before. I have no idea where dad took this picture, because that is not our house, and that pic was taken years after “the incident” Notice, there is a chrome piece missing on the left side between the bumper and tail light. That was a souvenir of an evening in a city parking lot in downtown Kalamazoo, when mom didn’t look where she was backing up and hit a frozen pile of snow. I was there.
Mom learned from that incident. Her next car was a 64 Rambler, about as bare bones as you could get a Classic 660: 6cy,l 3 on the tree, manual steering and brakes, no radio, no clock, no lighter socket, she even endured the vacuum wipers, but she paid up for the optional back up lights! These days, backup lights are mandatory, are usually part of the taillight assembly and intended to warn other people that you are backing up. In the Rambler, the backup lights were mounted low in the back bumper and were big and bright, to illuminate the ground where you were backing up.
And, to this day, I am a stickler for being able to see out the back of a car. No blobmobiles for Steve! Give me a low beltline and lots of glass, so I can see behind when I’m backing up.
My grandfather was the classic “old man with a hat” and 30mph was fast enough thank you very much. My mom learned to drive from him and that made her an overly cautious driver. She did drive more than 30mph though never in a hurry to get anywhere and almost never ventured onto the highway. Secondary roads only. If dad was around, he drove, which was most of the time since we were basically a one car household. When we reached driving age dad taught us how to drive and in his absence she would be the licenced driver riding shotgun.
We were at the supermarket loading loose grocery items into the back of the 72 Toyota Corroded wagon when she decided it was full and with her back to me with mighty swing she slammed the tailgate down hard. Well it was not full yet as there was one more loose can that didn’t make it in. I stepped around the side of the car to put it in the back placing my head in the path of the gate in about the same relative position that one places a walnut in a nutcracker. I saw bright flashes of colour and experienced an odd “smell” and had to sit down until the nausea passed.
I guess I learned to never put any part of my body in the way of doors, tailgates or hoods when there is a chance that someone else may slam it shut.
My mom had not even a tiny bit of sense of direction. My favorite time with her driving was when we went over the river to the other side of town and somehow she got lost going back home, passing about a dozen streets that would have taken her to the main road, where even she would have been able to figure out how to get home. This was in about 1967 or so, when I was 11. I was trying to keep from laughing as she got more and more off course. We stopped at a light, and she said, “OK, I’m totally lost, how the hell do we get back home?”. I said, just to mess with her, “I’m a kid, how would I know?”. She got very upset, and said, “Oh, your dad is going to give me all kinds of grief over this when he finds out!”. She pulled up to a phone booth, and just as she got out of the car, I said, “Wait! I know how to get home!”. She was so relieved, mostly because I agreed not to tell dad about it, in exchange for her stopping at the hobby store on the way home and buying me something.
The best time I ever had driving with her was about 30 years later, I was driving, she had stopped about 10 years before, mostly due to problem with her right leg. We went out to eat and were just kind of riding around, and I stopped at a 4 way stop and said, “Ok, take us home, you’re navigating, and I want to see if you can do it”. We were about 5 miles away from home, right next to one of the main roads through Toledo (Airport Highway). I knew it was going to be a disaster as it was near sundown, and she started heading West, the wrong direction, of course. I let her go ahead and keep on going. I couldn’t believe she kept going West, she would turn North or South, then go West again. She was totally lost. I was cracking up, but decided I would let her go until we hit Indiana, or she figured it out. She never did, until we came to a sign, “Welcome to Butler Indiana”. She couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t either. She just laughed, and said, “How could you just keep driving?”, I said, “How could you keep on going West for so long?”. She didn’t understand how could she know what direction she was heading. She was no dope, except with regards to direction, and I finally said, “The sun rises in the…?”, and he dropped her head and said, “East, and sets in the West!”. When we got home, she called her best friend and told her the whole thing, and her friend couldn’t believe she had forgotten something so simple.
In the early 1950’s some one took pity on Moms and gave her an old ‘A’ Model Ford Sedan ~ she drug us kids around in it for some time .
-Nate
This reminds me of my mom telling me once that she learned to drive in a Model A (my grandmother learned on a Model T!), and she would got so frustrated when she would see how swervy her tracks were behind her going down the road (such as how you would see your tracks in a light rain). She said it took a long time before she got where she could drive a straight track in that old A.
You remind me, Ed, of my own mother’s recollection learning to drive in the Westwood area of Los Angeles back around 1929 or so. She often hilariously recounted how she and her sister learned to drive in this gently hilly area, and their local butcher would loan them his Chevrolet to practice. They could never get the transmission shifting right, apparently they would get to the top of a hill, and then roll back down again. Over and over, she would say, on a lot of different hills. It, too, took her a long time to master those ancient manual transmissions. But eventually they did, and then shared a new 1932 Ford Model A roadster through their college years at UCLA. Somewhere I have a photo of that car that she saved for decades, I’ll have to share it sometime.
A ’32 Ford would be a ‘B’ Model .
-Nate
My mom impressed me most with her permissive supervision when I had a learner’s permit. 500 mile drive from southwest Iowa to northern Minnesota? Sure, a 14 year old can handle that. A few door-grabbers and phantom brake pedal pushes, but mostly relaxed conversation and gentle admonishments. Thanks, mom! (She’s still a pretty damn good driver.)
I was walking home from school in the 6th grade and as I saw my Mom’s 63 Grand Prix approaching, I threw my hands up in the air as if to tell her how grateful I was to see her and get a ride home, as i walked up to the car, i misjudged how far her car was as she edged closer to me, and the stacked headlights knocked me down, causing my head to hit the curb… sending her into a panic that I now surely had some sort of concussion and had to be looked at. She blamed herself and I am sure her sense of guilt was excruciating.
My absolute earliest memory in life was playing with Matchbox cars in the Morrokide vinyl seats of a 63 Bonneville convertible that she passed over to buy the Grand Prix, promiscing me that next time, she’d buy a convertible, which of course she never did.
Riding in the back jumpseat of moms Metropolitian when the left a-frame collapsed and we made a hard left across 3 lanes of heavy traffic and didn’t it a thing. If we had, we would have been toast.
My mom loved to drive, and until 1970, never owned a car with an automatic. My parents always bought a smaller economical car for our 2nd vehicle, and always with a stick. I never knew how good she was with said stick until I was almost 20, and she drove me to work one day wile my car was out of commission. By this time, she’d convinced my dad that she hated autos, and wanted a truly sporty car, so they bought a Fiat 128 Spider. It was fast, especially for the late 70’s, and some clown tried to hole shoot her with a Camaro. She was prepared for what was coming, and as the light changed she popped the clutch and slam shifted her way to redline in 3rd gear, clearly outclassing the Camaro, and forcing him to merge behind her. She smirked at me and said “That ‘ll teach him not to mess with a lady in her sports car.” That was all she ever said about it, and when my brother and I bring it up now, she just sort of dismisses it as an exaggerated memory.
I think I may have shared this story once before, but it sticks in my mind as perhaps the single most hysterical (scary, as well as funny) moment I can recall of driving with my mother. She would take my brother and me for tennis lessons at a local park when I was about 9 or 10 years old, always in our family car, at that point, a 1955 Oldsmobile 88 Holiday hardtop coupe. She would park it near an ivy bank while we had our lesson, often sitting there with the door open. One afternoon, on our way home and a few blocks away, driving up a hill, she let out a bloodcurdling scream, somehow got her right leg completely out from under the dash and up in the air (I was sitting next to her in the passenger seat), the car lurching up and over a rolled curb and into some ivy groundcover. Not having any idea what had just happened, with the car rolling to a stop (no damage, fortunately), and my mother still screaming, I saw a foot long green lizard slithering around on the driver’s side floor, it having apparently entered the car at the park, then crawled across her foot while accelerating up this hill. I was laughing hysterically, she was screaming hysterically, and finally the lizard went underneath the seat. She regained her composure to some extent, gingerly backed out of the ivy, and we raced for home, whereupon she abandoned the car in our driveway and waited for my father to come home and extricate the lizard. I still laugh to myself every time I recall this bizarre event, without a doubt, my most memorable experience ever driving with my mother.
We used to catch frogs in the swamp across the street and sell them at the bait store downtown. One time a shoebox full of frogs got loose in moms Olds wagon.
We were still finding frog mummies a year later.
I was automotively “blessed” in that both my Mother and Father enjoyed “sporty” cars and passed this joy onto me.
In the mid 1960’s our 6 member family required a “Full Sized” vehicle to transport us all in. After exhaustive shopping, brochure reading and option list choosing, Mom & Dad put together and “special ordered” a 1966 Ford Country Sedan station wagon, 390 4-barrel carb “Thunderbird Special” engine with dual exhaust, “Cruise-o-Matic” transmission with the 3.55 rear end positraction gears and the heavy duty “trailer towing” package.
Mom LOVED hearing those Goodyear PolyGlas tire squeal! She taught my impressionable 11 year old self how to “Power Brake” her grocery getter/suburban status symbol by firmly pressing her high heeled shoe on the 12 inch wide brake pedal, gradually “loading up” the transmission’s torque converter by slowly pressing down on the narrow little gas pedal, thereby building up the engine’s rpm, making the aftermarket “Cherry Bomb” dual exhaust bellow, then suddenly stepping off the power brake pedal while simultaneously flooring the gas pedal, allowing the secondaries on that big Holley 4 barrel carb to “kick in”.
I liked to brag to my friends where & how the several pairs of two black strips came from in the A&P grocery store’s far end cement parking lot.
“Let’s NOT tell your Father about this” she would say every time roared out of the lot.
The only pic I can find of the above Mom-mo-bile.
sometime back about 1959 I was with my Mom on our way home from church in our 1951 Plymouth, she turned into the driveway of a local restaurant which was slightly down hill, as we went down the drive she put her foot on the brake and the pedal went right to the floor, no brakes. she kept her cool as we circled the parking lot quite out of control, on about the second time around I mentioned the emergency brake and she brought the car to a safe stop. she didn’t freak out until it was all over.
We had a Saab 95 wagon, with the 2 stroke and hence freewheeling. I must have been 6 or so, and probably had just dropped my little sister at preschool. We drove down Walnut Hill Dr in East Goshen Township … “down” and “freewheeling” being the operative words. About halfway down there is a little hump, and the Saab got pretty close to airborne. I am sure Mom was pretty freaked out, but she was an unflappable Swede, so on we went.
That road and the Saab had even more history though. At nearly the same spot a tree nearly blew down on the car during a thunderstorm, and when the transmission blew up it was at the bottom of that hill. It’s kind of odd, because we didn’t often drive that road…
Pulling up next to a 66 Barracuda at a stop light in our Avanti. This was no ordinary Barracuda, it had a giant supercharger sticking through the hood, massive tires and a rollbar. My Mom gave a go, getting the holeshot but the Barracuda flew by like we were standing still. I think the best part of the “race” was my Mom rowing through the gears with an ice cream cone in her hand!
Mine is an example of mothers being right. When I was about 6, Mum & my sisters went on a holiday and I didn’t want to be squashed in the back seat between my sisters’ baby & booster seats. However Mum said I had to sit there because it was safer, and after a stone smashed the windscreen I agreed I was happy to be sitting in the back! It wasn’t a laminated windscreen so it smashed into thousands of pieces but luckily held in place while we drove slowly 10-20 miles into the next town to get it replaced.
The sad thing about this article is, if a couple took their kids for a ride around the block in a car like the photo from Life magazine which appears at the head of this article, they’d probably get arrested and thrown in jail for child endangerment and breaking I don’t know how many traffic and safety laws, particularly for letting Junior and Janie ride hanging off the side of the car.
One time when my mom got a speeding ticket she asked the cop why she was the one pulled over out of all the speeding traffic on I94 he responded ” You can’t miss a baby blue station wagon from the air”.
The interesting tic of hers was on the introduction of seat belts (which at that time she seldom wore) when she would have to do any sudden maneuver she would stick her right arm out to “catch” whichever of us kids was riding in the front seat. I finally asked her, since we were the ones belted in, if we were supposed to grab her arm to keep her off the dash in a sudden stop. She started wearing her belt after that.
Oh boy, I remember “the arm” quite well! We got rear-ended in slow traffic in our ’60 Biscayne, and it threw me (age approx. 6-7 years old) and my next-youngest brother into the rear seat footwells. My infant brother was in the front seat and thankfully wasn’t hurt.
I can still hear my Mother’s “June Cleaver” voice, as she prepared back to back the “power brake” station wagon out of the driveway, saying sweetly but firmly: “This car will NOT move until EVERY seat belt is buckled! Get it in gear, kiddos!”
Even with every and all seat belts buckled Mom also employed “The long arm of Motherhood” maneuver against anyone’s chest (including my Father!) if she had to stop suddenly. It must be a doner DNA thing that kicks in at childbirth?
I had forgotten that arm maneuver. I think it was built in to every mother. My mother performed it with precision at every quick stop. She finally gave it up in the mid-60’s when we were teenagers and seat belts became common.
Well, late as usual to the party, but I don’t often check my favorite auto sites on the weekends.
My most memorable trip with mom was when I was around 5 years old on a trip to the doctor in our trusty gray, 1950 Plymouth 2 door sedan.
Just as we were coming to a stop at an intersection, mom said to lock the door. In that car, you locked the door by pushing the inside door handle FORWARD.
Of course, I PULLED the handle and the door flew open, springing it and I almost fell out of the car! Mom grabbed me and we pulled into a gas station that just happened to be right around the corner. Well, the door was sprung pretty bad, but the mechanic took a length of rope and tied the door shut very securely by rolling down the back window slightly and winding the rope around the B pillar.
We got to the doctor’s office for mom’s appointment and went home. Dad got the car fixed in short order and got several more years of faithful service out of that car.
Meanwhile, I wondered if my left arm was any longer! Sure felt like it…
Even later to the party! Mom in our ’51 Buick Super w/ my sisters and I in the back seat in downtown Portsmouth, NM in ’61 when the brakes failed. She refused to drive it after that and the folks bought ’61 Rambler wagon.
My mother and I were together a lot. My clearest memory, though, is my worst.
In a hurry, she and I were in her Impala, and the day was a cold, wintery day. She left before the ice had cleared off the windshield. She basically had a porthole for vision.
To make the story short, she opened the window to lean her head out, and found a Mack truck coming straight for her. She swerved back into the lane, and only a few seconds later, the truck passed by, horns blaring.
That scared the heck out of me! That’s probably the reason why I always am the driver. I will never be a passenger in my own car, unless the mechanic is checking stuff over.
We also sold the Impala later. It was a problem child, and we had many more close calls in it.
Interesting stories! Well, my mom learned to drive in her mid 20s simply because my parents moved in a suburb and she had to drive to get to work. Her first car was a blue ’84 Chevette. According to her, she was scared to do left turns at green lights where there were no turning lanes, so she used to plan her trips so she would only have to do right turns. She would go to the next street, turn right, then right again on the next one to finally turn right on the street she wanted to go to… I was born shortly after that and she had gained a LITTLE tiny itsy bit of self-confidence behind the wheel by then. She is now a fairly good driver… if she knows where she’s going. Whenever we went somewhere new and she was driving, I knew the ride would turn out to be a total disaster. I remember that she once had to drive me to a dentist appointment in her third car, a 86 white Chevette this time. It was the first time my mom actually drove me there and she couldn’t remember where to turn. Not knowing where to go, she reached the end of the street we were on. The cross street was a one-way street going right, and you guessed it, she turned to the left. She realised her mistake when she saw cars comming towards us in all the lanes, so she swerved to the right in a driveway. She started cussing and crying, telling me that she would never ever drive me there again (which she did many times). She then backed out of the driveway, driving over garbage bags full of styrofoam that were piled up on the corner. I can still remember the screeching sound the bags full of trash were making while they were stuck in the rear wheel well of the poor Chevette. We dragged them for a few miles until we finally reached the dental clinic.
I also remember when the law changed here in Quebec, Canada so we could turn right on red lights. While sitting at one, still in the Chevette, I remember my mom asking me if the law was about turning left or right. Being around 12 at the time, I didn’t really know and I told her so. A few people honking at us in the intersection made it clear that left turns were not allowed at red lights, to my mother’s surprise.
It was quite funny when my mom teached me how to drive. We were in Montreal and she was giving me advice on which street to use while going to visit my grandmother. She told me to turn right on a street she claimed to always use because it was much faster, only for me to realise it was a one way street we had taken from the wrong side… I wonder how many times she did the same move before that without realising it… That said, she pretty much only drives to go to work and there’s no one way street in her commute… reassuring!
As a beginner driver with a Learner’s Permit (requires a licensed driver in the front seat with you), I figured that I was doing OK when I saw that my Mom was fast asleep in the passenger seat as I was cruising along the expressway!
Mom and Dad bought new 1955 Pontiac 4 dr. tan and cream colored with green interior at a Prineville, Oregon dealer .Later after shopping at grocery store in Madras ( our home town) we drove to park behind Rexall drug store. Locking doors and shopped at drug store when leaving Mom commented she thought she parked further from door but we unlocked doors and drove home upon arriving we were unable to locate the grocery’s and noticed some odd papers on seat. Driving back to drug store we were greeted by an extremely agitated woman and a calm city police officer who soon realized than both 1955 Pontiacs were painted, upholstered and keyed identical. They sold me the car when purchasing a 1964 mercury Montclair for the trade in value of $125.00 I now have the Mercury and the wife and I took it on 2013 car cruise to Yellowstone with the Jasper street rod club.
I was 15 in 1973, I had a date with my friend Sue to go to the Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon concert in Buffalo NY. Mom was to drive us there and Sue’s Dad was to pick us up. On the way to the Arena for the concert Mom ran out of fuel for the 1972 Chevy Vega on the highway, RT 90. We were stuck by the side of the road.
A nice NY State Trooper came to rescue us, gave us a gallon of gas and we made it to the Pink Floyd concert in time for my date with Sue.!
Most memorable time was probably when I was 6 or 7…there was snow on the ground, not a super common occurrence in Greensboro, NC where we usually got snowfall once or twice a year. They hadn’t plowed our apartment parking lot, but I was sick with a fever and an earache and needed to go to the doctor. So we ventured out in the ’79 Malibu, but Mom had scarcely gotten out of the space when we slid clear across the parking lot and ended up with one rear wheel of the car wedged into a curb storm drain opening. No amount of rocking attempts would free it, and I had to wait until a tow truck could come extricate the car from the drain opening. She eventually got me to the doctor’s office but I don’t recall if she ever drove in snow after that.
I also find it amusing that Mom is a tiny woman, 5’1″ on a good day and 100 lbs. soaking wet, and yet she has always driven BIG cars. That Malibu was one of her smaller cars, and it was no lightweight–she’s also had a ’97 Crown Vic, an ’86 Parisienne, ’68 and ’69 Impalas, ’72 Chevelle, and learned to drive on a ’60 Ford Custom sedan. The only ones that weren’t big were her first car (’60 Valiant) and the ’91 Accord that she had to share with Dad for a bit. Didn’t like either. She now has a ’10 Grand Marquis and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, will probably have that until she no longer drives.