October, 1969

The house seems a quieter place now that my grandparents have left. Quieter, but certainly an air of tension exists as my parents try to hide themselves from their kids to discuss something in muffled, secretive tones. It is the sixth sense in all children that lets them know when something is about to change the family in a major way. It is the fallacy of parents that they should think the kids are completely oblivious. In October of 1969, even a 17 month old me would have felt the disquieting pall that has fallen over the house.

Despite home tensions, and maybe it was that he was a glutton for stress, my father has agreed to teach my sister Sharon, recently turned 16 and nagging for a driver’s license, how to drive. My father was a man of some resolve and a fair dose of patience so teaching his first child how to drive should not prove to be too much of a challenge. One early Fall evening Sharon, with her learner's permit in hand, headed out with my somewhat resigned father, to the big green Buick that was still unaware of its fate. The stories around this event fall into two camps; my sister’s and my father’s. My sister claims that my father confused her and she panicked causing her to slam down hard on the wrong pedal. My father blamed a system that would let a person earn a learner's permit without being able to differentiate the gas from the brake pedal. Our driveway sloped down along the side of the house to the road and was visible through the kitchen side window. If you were seated at the kitchen table you had a view of the car coming and going. My mother remembers it this way: a fast green blur, the clearly discernible scream of her daughter, my father yelling something inaudible (although some select swear words were clear) and, a few seconds later, a colossal bang. Driving lesson number one was over.

My mother hurried out the front door to see what had happen and across the road she saw that the car had stopped, back end first, in the access lane that lead to the wharf. The rear end of the car had crashed into a large 8 foot wide steel cable spool, crushing the trunk to half its normal size. Inside the car sat my sister, still clinging to the steering wheel with a ghost white expression of disbelief. The passenger side door was left open where my father had hurriedly and wisely exited the vehicle. At the back of the car my father, and a couple of neighbours that had shown up, were examining the damage to the car and the complete lack of damage done to large cable spool that had been placed there early that week. My mother, in slippers, flopped across the street to make sure Sharon was ok. My sister was fine but the back end of the car fared much worse. My father, as was his style when he was very upset, said absolutely nothing. Later, after the commotion had died down, the car towed away, and everyone had settled in for the night my sister Sharon well observed that it was a good thing she had hit the cable spool otherwise she would have continued down the lane, onto the wharf and into the harbour. The message was not lost on my father. This was the only driving lesson my father every gave to any of his kids and my sister Sharon was soon enrolled in driver’s ed at the high school. There’s a great photo of Sharon in the 1970 high school year book It shows her, in a remarkably short skirt, surrounded by the kids of other relieved and/or exasperated fathers, all waving their driver’s licenses.

A song heard from my sister Sharon’s room all through late 1969
Space Oddity by David Bowie