Fear of Cars

I was terrified to learn to drive. I told people it was because I didn't believe in perspective but the truth was I was in too many car accidents as a child with my mother at the wheel. My sister and I would go flying from the way back, to under the dashboard sobbing, terrified because my mother was trying to make a point, with us or another driver, or both. This was before there were safety seats for kids. Once the car caught on fire during a carpool. Sonia was high drama, all the time. A true desperate housewife! As a child I heard family lore about my grandparents Sophie and Nat flipping their Buick convertible giving my young 8 year old uncle a concussion. Was it a convertible? Was my mother there too? I think she was married to my father by then.

I don't trust most drivers and I hesitate to cross the street. People are always on the phone or looking down at their hand held computer devices, I see them when I am walking each day through the city.

"Watch out for the machines!" My friends grandmother would say.

My elderly walking friends have been hit, but luckily survived and are walking again. There are fatalities every year from people wearing dark clothes walking in the street to avoid piles of snow.

When I was 19 I quit college and moved to rural North Carolina. I needed to learn to drive and I needed a car. I decided I loved the smell and animated look of the VW bug dashboard, it was decided. I could learn to drive one of those. A VW camper was for sale by a sweet musician friend it was Cadmium orange and cost 500 dollars, all the money I had, but the owner backed out at the last minute, he loved it too much. I bought My first car the following week, an ultramarine blue VW bug. I was going to live in it with my dog Travis, but my boyfriend at the time suggested it was a bad idea, so I ended up living in a tipi.

My friend Amy's mom said about my fear of driving, "You have good instincts, and fast reflexes, you'll do fine!"
She was right. I actually love to drive and with music on the radio, and manual stick shift, my dog in the back seat, it is a sublime and sensory combination. With my first wheels I was off an running to swim in ponds, quarries, and the ocean. I still love to swim, off season every chance I get.

Today's NYT VW camper restoration story brought back all the memories.