Travis Eaton wrote a Facebook note asking about Drivers Ed and it reminded me of Coach Smith and my experiences with driving.
First off I cannot remember when I first drove because I drove a tractor and worked the fields when I was about 9 years old and probably drove the pickup to feed cattle even earlier. I was always too big for my age so reaching the peddles was never a problem. I was taller than Miss Shumate in the third grade and taller than Mrs. Casselman in the second. Miss Shumate was about 5 foot tall, max. Mrs. Casselman was about 5'1". OK, back to the point. Driving was a necessity and I remember Jon Tanny and Eddie always were driving just like me and no one cared and in fact folks tried to hire me to drive their tractors long before I was 16 years old.
So what about drivers education. Coach Smith was my teacher and I don't really think he had a single thing to teach most of us so mostly we just drove around for an hour and stopped by the Dixie Dog for a refreshment or got out on the streets about town and practiced parking. Really it was not much of an adventure except for the day I took my test.
That day I went down to the city hall as I recall to take the test which was no big deal but then I had to have someone go with me for a test drive in my car. It was my red '62 Chevy which I had already owned and was driving to school each day from Grainola to Shidler (house to school of about 15 miles) that I took my test in. I was really nervous about this part since I had never been in the situation before. The testing person told me to back out of the angled parking place and lets go for a drive. Well that was when things got a little sticky. I was having to give the car a lot of gas to get it to back up and it was a three speed manual transmission with the gear shift on the steering shaft. The testing person suggested that I might want to take off the emergency brake so it would not burn up my brakes. "Good Idea", I said as my body broke out into a heavy sweat. We took the car for a spin and about another 10 minutes went by and he told me to try a parallel park event. Luckily I had read the book and knew how to pull up correctly to start the parallel parking but when I turned my wheels and started in reverse I wound up just about perpendicular to the curb in between two cars. He suggested that I should just go on. I was sure at this point I was in deep do-do and would not pass. Luckily he gave me 2 points for pulling up correctly and I made a perfect score! I made a 70! And it took a 70 to pass, therefore a perfect score.
Now that all was good news but let me tell you about the second time I tried to parallel park. For some reason I decided to enter a state wide driving contest held at OSU each year during the annual 4-H convention. Not only did I park parallel 100% correctly but I had literally never tried it since the day of my driving test. And on top of that I drove the course in a record time dodging between markers and tennis balls because I was in a hurry to get to my next event which was a speech contest doing a demonstration. Guess what? I placed second in the state competition.
Just for funnies, the demonstration contest was a contest I had to qualify on the county and regional basis to be in the state finals. I had not prepared a speech so the day of the speech I took a book I had read "The Five Fundamentals of Gold" by Ben Hogan and outlined the five points on a poster board, grabbed a golf club and went to the contest. Much to my amazement I won the contest and the regional and then the state. I practiced it ALL three times. Pretty funny, huh?
Well I don't know about you but growing up in the Osage cannot be beaten by any class 5, 4, 3, or whatever class school. I am a proud Shidler Tiger and a proud Osage and it don't get any better than that. Yes, I meant to say don't.
What do you learn in the Osage?
First off I cannot remember when I first drove because I drove a tractor and worked the fields when I was about 9 years old and probably drove the pickup to feed cattle even earlier. I was always too big for my age so reaching the peddles was never a problem. I was taller than Miss Shumate in the third grade and taller than Mrs. Casselman in the second. Miss Shumate was about 5 foot tall, max. Mrs. Casselman was about 5'1". OK, back to the point. Driving was a necessity and I remember Jon Tanny and Eddie always were driving just like me and no one cared and in fact folks tried to hire me to drive their tractors long before I was 16 years old.
So what about drivers education. Coach Smith was my teacher and I don't really think he had a single thing to teach most of us so mostly we just drove around for an hour and stopped by the Dixie Dog for a refreshment or got out on the streets about town and practiced parking. Really it was not much of an adventure except for the day I took my test.
That day I went down to the city hall as I recall to take the test which was no big deal but then I had to have someone go with me for a test drive in my car. It was my red '62 Chevy which I had already owned and was driving to school each day from Grainola to Shidler (house to school of about 15 miles) that I took my test in. I was really nervous about this part since I had never been in the situation before. The testing person told me to back out of the angled parking place and lets go for a drive. Well that was when things got a little sticky. I was having to give the car a lot of gas to get it to back up and it was a three speed manual transmission with the gear shift on the steering shaft. The testing person suggested that I might want to take off the emergency brake so it would not burn up my brakes. "Good Idea", I said as my body broke out into a heavy sweat. We took the car for a spin and about another 10 minutes went by and he told me to try a parallel park event. Luckily I had read the book and knew how to pull up correctly to start the parallel parking but when I turned my wheels and started in reverse I wound up just about perpendicular to the curb in between two cars. He suggested that I should just go on. I was sure at this point I was in deep do-do and would not pass. Luckily he gave me 2 points for pulling up correctly and I made a perfect score! I made a 70! And it took a 70 to pass, therefore a perfect score.
Now that all was good news but let me tell you about the second time I tried to parallel park. For some reason I decided to enter a state wide driving contest held at OSU each year during the annual 4-H convention. Not only did I park parallel 100% correctly but I had literally never tried it since the day of my driving test. And on top of that I drove the course in a record time dodging between markers and tennis balls because I was in a hurry to get to my next event which was a speech contest doing a demonstration. Guess what? I placed second in the state competition.
Just for funnies, the demonstration contest was a contest I had to qualify on the county and regional basis to be in the state finals. I had not prepared a speech so the day of the speech I took a book I had read "The Five Fundamentals of Gold" by Ben Hogan and outlined the five points on a poster board, grabbed a golf club and went to the contest. Much to my amazement I won the contest and the regional and then the state. I practiced it ALL three times. Pretty funny, huh?
Well I don't know about you but growing up in the Osage cannot be beaten by any class 5, 4, 3, or whatever class school. I am a proud Shidler Tiger and a proud Osage and it don't get any better than that. Yes, I meant to say don't.
What do you learn in the Osage?
- Learning is a journey and it is your choice what you want to get out of it
- The only limit on your potential is put on by you, it is a decision not your circumstance
- Today is the beginning of a new adventure and I expect to take part in it with a good attitude
Thanks for sharing your time with me,
gary@thepioneerman.com
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