Getting your license easier 60 years ago

Maude McDaniel, Columnist

Get to my age, and you start to think backwards instead of forwards. Try it — it’s easy. Just sit down, put your feet up (if they reach) , and let your thoughts drift. Before you know it — there you are in the 1940s. No trouble at all.

I mention this because I recently got to thinking about my driving test, which took place when I was maybe 14, or less. In those days, that was an acceptable age for getting your license in West Virginia. As I think back, I begin to see that, contrary to my usual reactions, maybe nowadays they do things better than way back then. (Please make note of that, because it’s a conclusion I don’t often reach.)

Anyway, this was back during World War ll, and government officials had other things to think about than pipsqueak teens who thought they could drive. And take my word for it, driving in those days was a lot more complicated than it is nowadays, what with clutches, and gear-shifting and such. (My special bane was waiting on a hill for the red light to change, and then deftly keeping one foot on the clutch while slipping the other off the brake and onto the accelerator and then immediately slipping your feet off the clutch in time for the accelerator to catch. Or something like that. I haven’t driven stick shift since about 1965 or so, and I’m not completely clear on the details any more. )

No wonder my dad was a little concerned, sitting in the death seat, as I tooled through the suburban streets of Wheeling, carefully squinting through the windshield, lining up the hood ornament on the front of the car with the right-hand curb. Someone had told me that was a good way to stay in your own lane, and, so help me, I did it that way for months after I got my license! When I finally started looking straight ahead while driving, it was like a whole new world — and slightly scary.

I still remember Daddy (that’s what we called our fathers in the 40s, or at least girls did — and, now that I think about it, my brothers did too) starting out slow and controlled, accelerating to 60 mph and a barely controlled shriek, within about 21 words: “Okay, Maude, you cut that corner a little bit — Maude — Try To Stay On Your Side Of The Road ;” please, Watch Out, THERE’S A STOP SIGN — STOP!”

Which I did, usually, throwing both of us into close proximity with the windshield. Of course, in those days, there was no such thing as a safety belt, even for children. I well remember (and with great joy) long vacation trips we took with our own children years later, still without safety belt requirements. The kids spent the time rolling around completely unrestrained in the back of our station wagon, and no one thought anything about it.

Anyway, the great day came eventually. Daddy decided I was ready for the test, and we piled into the car with Mother’s best wishes, and me driving. The state police headquarters was outside the city limits. “I heard they’ve moved lately,” mused Daddy, and we drove along looking for it. “There it is!” he shouted suddenly, pointing to a house with a police sign in front, that we had already almost passed. I slammed on the brakes and we skidded into the yard in front. Several policemen heard the squealing sounds and came out onto the front porch to see what the excitement was all about. They gazed curiously as Daddy and I got out. “She’s here to get her license,” my father told them helpfully.

I passed the written exam without any trouble, and drew a handsome young policeman, who seemed to be amused at our dramatic entrance, as my official licenser. And, tell you the truth, I didn’t do badly. Oh, a pesky stop sign or two, but I never completely missed a one — just maybe stopped a little late after I noticed them. (Unlike my father, the policeman never would point them out early.)

A friend of my brother’s had told me about his driver’s test, when the policeman told him to go through a red light and then flunked him for doing what he was told. “Never do the wrong thing, even if a policeman tells you to,” was the lesson on that one, and I was all prepared to disobey gloriously, except the occasion never turned up.

Finally we got back to the police station (or house) and my policeman took me into the driveway where there were two park benches lying in the grass. He set them up some feet apart in the roadway, and directed me to parallel park between them. Now, I was never very good at parallel parking, but he didn’t give me a choice, or even say “Two out of three.” So I did.

Unfortunately, when I pulled up to the one in front, I knocked it down, and when I backed up to the one in back, I knocked that one down too. I sat in fear and trembling waiting for his verdict.

He walked over to my driver’s window and motioned me to put it down. I did. He cleared his throat.

“Maude, you didn’t do the greatest job in the world on this driving test.. But — “ he paused a moment, and cleared his throat again, “today’s my birthday and as a present to me I am going to give you your license.”

You don’t see policemen like him any more.

Maybe that’s a good thing.

Maude McDaniel is a Cumberland freelance writer. Her column appears on alternate Sundays in the Times-News.