Driving

My brother Ralph taught me to drive a car when I was 14. I was a nice tall girl. When I went to get my driver's license I drove myself to the examiner's house. He asked me where my father was, he was building the Montgomery Ward building on Main Street so we drove to Main Street and that was my driving test. I drove around our neighborhood alone. My dad was a builder and was building houses on Chester Street and his workmen told him that they saw me drving around. I decided to teach my next door neighbor Ethel to drive. I thought if I could drive she could drive. Of course she was nearly blind from birth but was very capable of taking care of herself. As far as I remember she did ok and she drove all around the north end. Remember the streets were not all there, of course neither was I! I liked to watch my brother fix the car. The first car I drove was an Erskine. When I was a teenager my father would send me up to Manchester to pick up lumber. I would drive his pickup truck. I had more fun than my sister. She had all the boyfriends but I had all the fun! My sister and my mother never drove until later in their lives. Sometimes I would drive down to Boston with my father. I would have to go through Lexington and Arlington as there was no real highway. In fact I drove it alone to pick up my sister at Massachusetts General Hospital when she had a day off. When I was a senior I sometimes got to drive the car to high school. When I was graduating from college my father told me he was going to give me something round and shiney and I was sure it was going to be a new car. He actually gave me a diamond ring. I would rather have had a car.