Hornswoggled

Some time back, we wrote an on-the-spot report on driver education, Porterville style. We thought it was all good fun, and gave the whole business a left-handed pat on the back. Subsequent events have proved that early and unbridled enthusiasm is very unwise. After passing the tests, the students are demanding graduate work. Unfortunately, it seems that we have been elected chief professor.

It all started innocently enough when we asked what the two scholars of the automobile about our house had learned in driver training. Somehow words failed them, but they were perfectly willing to show me. We selected a spot that was roughly in the middle of a 100-acre field. "Miss Grinding Gears of 1960" took the controls. After parrying with the ignition, choke, clutch, and one thing and another, we leaped away something like a jackrabbit with the spasms.

Between snaps of the neck, we shouted to her to push in the clutch, turn off the key, or something. All we got was more leaping until the car, in self-defense, settled down to a steady motion. Miss Grinding Gears was not at all perturbed and felt that the leaping start had certain advantages.

The other scholar goes for more of a spinning start. This is achieved by revving up the motor to a deafening roar and then letting out the clutch. If the axles can stand this, it provides a rubber-torturing getaway. The old professor is trying to reconcile the leaping and spinning schools of thought with ordinary driving procedure as practiced by those of us who are unschooled in these finer techniques.

So, as if we hadn't enough to do, we now take a practice spin with our scholars each day-on private ground, of course, where the constabulary won't have to worry about the performances and we won't have to worry about the constabulary.

If it all ended here, it would not be so bad, but we find that we are constantly being brainwashed, motor vehicle style, about our own driving. Every time we brake too fast, fail to signal properly, cut a corner (slightly only), or deviate in the least from driverlike deportment, we are lectured by certain teenage passengers. What is worse, they keep score, and we're now wondering if we will even be able to pass our next driving test.

Come to think of it, there is lots to be said in favor of the horse and buggy days!