The first time I was ever behind the wheel of a car was with my father, an engineer no less, so he should have known better, told me to back out of the garage. It was a 1962 white Rambler station wagon and sometimes we referred to it as the mouse - because that it was we thought it looked like. I had never driven forward, much less backwards, but that wasn't going to stand in my way. How hard could it be?

I wasn't exactly sure where to look, but I certainly was not going to miss my chance. As I put the car in reverse I looked to right as my mothers car - the newer used blue Ford - was parked there. As I stepped on the gas and "zoomed" out, the sound of shattering glass filled the garage. I forgot but there was a louvered door laying on its side along the left hand side of the garage and the bumper of the Rambler hit every slat of glass as I backed out.

But that wasn't the best part of the story, our neighbors house with their garage was right above ours on a little hill. Mr. Kaye IRV, with an emphasis on the V, was backing out at the same time I was. IRV was watching me and laughing so hard that he caught his car bumper on the frame of his garage and pulled the entire thing off!!

I wasn't "allowed" to drive again for a few months :( And I never really had any driving lessons, but I did learn that going forward is a lot easier then going backward. Also a good lesson about how to live your life :)

My dad  never bought a new car in his life - for some reason the front seats in the Rambler kind of pitched backwards and if you were sitting with your back into the tilt of the seat you would actually be looking at the sky!

I drove the Rambler for my driving test.  I remember the test instructor sitting there looking up at the sky and I knew I would pass because he couldn't actually be seeing what I was doing...