Mom's Last Job

In the late summer of 1970 mom got a job - and I got a learner's permit. And yes - the two events are connected.

I never got to take Driver's Ed because we moved around so much and therefore could not (theoretically) get a Texas driver's license until I turned 18... However, there was a "hardship" provision and since mom's new job required her to be out of town most of the time I qualified... There were restrictions (daytime hours only), but it was better than nothing :-)

OK - mom's job is a bit hard to explain: Her boss provided TV monitor systems for cattle auctions that displayed the "vital statistics" of cows as they were being auctioned off. And between cows the monitors displayed ads for local businesses. Selling ad time was how he made money on the deal... It seemed like almost every rural town in southern Oklahoma and east Texas had a cattle auction and this guy had signed up just about all of them.
BTW: He was way ahead of the times. A lot of airports didn't even have that kind of technology back in 1970.

Anyway - the guy couldn't keep up with all his customers so he hired mom to go from town to town touching bases with existing advertisers and signing up new ones. She was really quite good at it. Her whole charming / ditzy routine with the thick Hungarian accent seemed to go over pretty well with folks in those small towns. They had definitely never encountered anyone like her before...
Her boss also gave her a company car - a dark green 1964 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. (He wanted her to look successful.) I have to admit - I loved that car. Mom let me drive it when she was in town and I even used it for my driver's test. I could parallel park it and everything.

OK. This really puzzled me:
Mom's boss was a pudgy 40+ year old guy with scraggly hair and a lazy eye - definitely not much to look at. He had a ranch up near Wichita Falls and one weekend mom had to go there on business and took me along... Now - I had never met the guy's wife. All I knew was that she was a brilliant businesswoman and was married to a decidedly goofy looking dude, so I was a bit apprehensive. I mean - I didn't want to laugh out loud or anything...
I thought I had prepared myself for anything but there was one possibility that hadn't crossed my mind: She was exquisite... And I don't say that lightly. I was barely 17 at the time and not particularly attracted to women over 30 let alone over 40. But this woman was an absolute stunner... They'd been together since high school and were totally devoted to each other - and I was mystified... I'd heard the expression "looks aren't everything" before - but I'd never encountered such a textbook example :-)

Anyway - it was a memorable trip for reasons other than meeting a "goddess":
I rode into town with one of the ranch hands to get some tractor parts. That was when I found out that pretty much everyone in rural Texas drives over 100 MPH on dirt roads. We actually ran a stop sign going 115. (You could see for a mile in every direction so it wasn't that crazy...)

And in the afternoon the boss and his wife took me for a ride in their Piper Cherokee. I'd never been in a private plane before - I was totally fascinated... Of course - it wasn't until after we were airborne that they mentioned they were trying to diagnose an engine problem (stumbling at low throttle). The wife assured me that he was an excellent pilot and even if the engine died we'd be able to land safely. (The terrain was pretty flat and barren. You'd almost have to go out of your way to hit something.) The engine stumbled (as expected) but it didn't die and we landed at the airstrip as planned.
You know - it just now occurred to me that he might not have been licensed what with the lazy eye and all... I guess I'll never know :-)

It was only a couple of months between the time I got the learner's permit and took the driving test. When mom wasn't around Al (from the guru followers) gave me lessons in his Manx dune buggy (converted VW beetle). Hmm... I had totally forgotten about that dune buggy until now. Had a lot of good times in that thing :-)
Those 2 months before the driving test were really rough... Karina was constantly pestering me to take her places in the 1963 Fairlane (which mom had bequeathed to me) and I kept explaining that I only had a permit and if something happened (even if it wasn't my fault) I'd never get my license. I only gave in once to take her to K-Mart. On the way there someone ran a stop sign right in front of me and I barely missed them. After that I absolutely refused to violate the terms of my permit again.

I still remember the driving test. I scored in the mid 90s on both the written and driving portions... But once I got my license and was free to go wherever I wanted I discovered that there wasn't really anywhere I wanted to go :-)
There was another major disappointment: I had never pushed hard on the accelerator while I was learning to drive and just assumed there was a huge amount of untapped power there. So the first time I was alone in the 63 Fairlane I floored it expecting the car to take off like a rocket and - not much happened... I was like "Are you kidding me? That's it????"... It was a moment I'd been looking forward to since I was a toddler and I was devastated. Thus began a lifelong quest for more horsepower :-)

With mom out of town our lives changed quite a bit. There was a lot less stress. I spent most of my time chauffeuring Karina around and trying (in vain) to prevent her from spending all the money mom deposited in the bank while she was on the road :-)

You know - like most kids - I had assumed that when I finished high school and got a driver's license I would somehow magically become a capable and confident adult and have a good job and a hot girlfriend... But nothing really changed... I knew where I was and where I wanted to be but could not see any way to get from here to there. It was quite disheartening... So I spent a lot of time lying awake at night feeling sorry for myself - and during the day I watched soap operas. (Rachel Cory on Another World was such an evil person.) ... Yeah - those days seemed to drag on forever...