
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
August 7, 2006
/ 13 Menachem-Av, 5766
Junior takes the wheel
By
Dave Barry
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Well, OK, technically he's 15. But from the perspective of the aging parent, there is no major difference between 4 and 15, except that when your child is 4, his motoring privileges are restricted to little toy Fisher-Price vehicles containing little toy Fisher-Price people who are unlikely (although I would not totally rule it out in America) to sue you.
Whereas when your child turns 15, the state of Florida lets him obtain a permit that allows him to drive an actual car on actual roads, despite the fact that you can vividly remember when he slept on "Return of the Jedi" sheets. Of course, there are restrictions: He must be accompanied by a licensed driver 18 or over. But that does not reassure me. What that means to me is that, in the eyes of the state of Florida, it is perfectly OK for my son to be driving around accompanied only by Ted Kennedy.
I want tougher restrictions than that. I want the law to say that if my son is going to drive, he must be accompanied by a licensed paramedic and at least two Supreme Court justices. I also believe that, as a safety precaution, his car should be attached via a stout chain to a restraining device such as the Pentagon.
It's not that I think my son is a bad driver. He's actually a pretty good driver, careful to signal his turns. That's what worries me: He'll be driving in Miami, where nobody else, including the police, does this. If Miami motorists were to see a turn signal, there's no telling how they'd react. They could become alarmed and start shooting.
And what if my son actually believes the official Florida state driver's manual when it says that the left lane is for passing only? Not here in Miami, it isn't! The driving public here apparently believes that there is some kind of deadly voodoo curse on the right lane, so everybody drives in the left lane, at speeds ranging all the way from Indianapolis 500 down to Car Wash. This means that if you get behind somebody traveling at, say, Funeral Procession speed, and you want to pass, you have to disregard the driver's manual, risk the voodoo curse and use the right lane, unless the driver in front of you is talking on a cell phone, because these people frequently receive urgent mandatory instructions from whoever they're talking to, such as, "Swerve across all available names immediately!" So when you're behind cell-phone drivers, it's generally wise to wait patiently for a few moments until they ram into a bridge abutment; then you can pass safely on whichever side has the least amount of flame spewing out.
We veteran Miami drivers know this, just as we know that in Miami it's considered acceptable to park on any semi-level surface including roofs, and to go through a red light as long as you can still remember when it was yellow. But how is my son supposed to know these things?
What really scares me is, he'll want to drive a lot. I know this, because I remember exactly how I felt when I got my driver's license in 1963. I was a student at Pleasantville High School in New York state, where, if you were a male, cars were extremely important. There were two major religions: Ford and Chevy. Ford guys would carve "FoMoCo" (for "Ford Motor Co.") on desks; Chevy guys this was considered extremely witty would change it to read "FoNoGo." We found great wisdom in Beach Boys car songs, which are just like love songs to a woman, except they're (a) more passionate, and (b) more technically detailed, as in these lyrics from "Little Deuce Coupe":
"She's ported and relieved and she's stroked and bored;/She'll do a hundred and forty in the top end floored. . . ."
At lunchtime, we stood next to the circle in front of the high school and watched guys drive around slowly, revving their engines. Sometimes, if we were especially impressed with a car, we would spit.
I applied for my New York state driver's license the instant I was old enough, and the day it arrived finally! in the mail, I borrowed my mother's car, which was a Plymouth Valiant station wagon that could attain a top speed of 53 mph if dropped from a bomber. I didn't care. I had wheels! I drove around at random for approximately the next two years. It made no difference to me where I was going. I was happy simply to be in motion, with the AM radio turned up loud and tuned to WABC in New York City, which would be playing, say, "He's So Fine," by the Chiffons:
"He's so fine (Doo-lang doo-lang doo-lang)/Wish he were mine (Doo-lang doo-lang doo-lang)/That handsome boy over there. . . ."
And behind the wheel, with my arm draped casually out the window, I imagined that I was that handsome boy, not some dweeb driving his mom's Valiant. I was cool. I was driving.
These days, when I'm driving, I rarely listen to music. I do listen to traffic reports, because I'm always late for some obligatory grown-up thing. I'm never driving just to be driving.
But my son soon will be. He'll be out there every chance he gets, feeling so fine, cruising to nowhere, signaling his turns, playing his music, cranking it up when a good song comes on, maybe exchanging high-fives with the Supreme Court justices.
Yup, he'll be on the road a lot a teenager, but still, in many ways, a human being. Please watch out for him.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
Growing old with Dave
Sites for sore eyes
Beware of sheep droppings
Ireland, land of bad Elvis
Mr. Peabrain's misadventures
When they're out to get you, keep cool
Mothers of invention
Kill 'em with kindness
© 2006, The Miami Herald Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|