Pedal Power

I was terrified to learn to drive and didn't learn when all the kids I grew up with were learning. I hated the idea, and I knew my mother would just send me on errands. I told people I didn't believe in perspective and it really looked like the road was narrowing and coming to an end, that's why I wasn't going to learn to drive. Then one day years later a friend told me she'd teach me how to drive if I would drive her to her acupuncturist. So I learned to drive on her little automatic-transmission beige Datsun, escorting her there and back. I still hadn't learned to drive a stick-shift or how to drive on the highway, so another woman I knew took me out on the ramp to the highway in her green semi-automatic-transmission VW bug and said, "Make your move!" I was so terrified - I remember having to drink half a beer (a lot for me) to work up the guts to drive. But eventually I caught on.

I always loved the smell of a VW bug, so that was the car I was going to own. I loved the way the dashboard and windshield were so cartoony, like the inside of a Mickey Mouse toy. Shortly after moving to rural North Carolina I decided it was time for me to get my own car. I got a blue VW bug for 500 dollars from a UNC student, and learned to drive it. Finding gears with a stick-shift felt to me like finding my cervix. It was really trippy! But I wanted the manual transmission so I would be engaged and participating in the driving, and not feeling like I was in a couch with wheels. I felt free, safe, and powerful driving, especially when I traveled with my dog. He'd fill the car with dog breath, and I was less afraid taking the 14-hour drive home to RI, needing gas on the New Jersey Turnpike at one a.m.

I would often forget to turn on my headlights or shut my doors. Many times the doors would fly open as I pulled out of a gas station. One time my gas pedal stuck. My brother was visiting, following me in his car, as I drove like Mario Andretti through rural North Carolina. I should have pulled over and addressed the problem but I just accepted it as the car's mood. I'm a hippie surrealist. Anything is possible. Playing music while driving shouldn't be legal for me, it's sensory overload, but my bug didn't have a radio so it was OK. Instead I had a vintage black-and-white postcard of Duke Ellington's band taped over the spot where the radio would've been. Passengers always admired it, and I'd say that's my radio! The driver's seat had a huge hole but I had a bunched-up green Indian bedspread covering the mess of springs and horsehair poking through.

One Christmas as a surprise my boyfriend installed a new driver's seat and radio/tape player, but then he would always take my car because it was more fun than his car. So I was stranded. And I was spineless, I said nothing. He would drive drunk and make a mess out of all the fenders backing out of my driveway. My blue bug looked like a rotten grape.

I haven't had my own car in five years. I am thinking a gigantic tricycle would be perfect if I could fit Honey in the basket! Or I could leave Honey home and deliver homemade breads by bicycle! Pedal power works for me!! Only one engine to feed! Turkey sandwiches as fuel beats a gallon of gas. There's a guy around town who was famous for carrying his dog on his bike, and when his dog died there was a story about it in the paper. The locals chipped in and found him another dog! It's one of those dogs that looks like a hairdo with legs, riding in a kid carrier trailing behind him. There's another guy who rides around with American flags all over his bicycle and a full-sized one in back flapping behind him, getting a bit tattered. He started this after the September 11th attack. Mr. Patriotic I call him. When I lived in Providence I commuted by bicycle in rain, sleet, snow, and slush, day and night! I'd ride up College Hill and everywhere on my three-speed bike. This was before helmets and road rage were in vogue.