Filed under: Events, My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: 43 mph zone, 97 mph, alico, avett brothers, backing, beginning, birthday, blowing up, boys, braking, brendan, burger king, car, cart, cattaraugus, celebration, certificate, christ, class, clunk, clunks, concert, cones, confused, content, cool, country, countryside, county, crack, crash, curb, cute, daily, day, dmv, doubt, drive, driven, driver, driver ed, driver ed van, driver education, driver's ed, driving, drove, drunk driving, education, experience, expressway, expressway driving, first, first day, forehead, forest, forever, freak, funny, gas leak, girls, go-karts, gowanda, green, guard rail, hands, high, hijack, hills, hitting, hold on for dear life, humor, interesting, issue, jesse, joyride, karen, katie, keys, killed, last, make-up, mark, mark and karen's, mayday, memories, memory, minnekine, miss, mother, motor vehicle, mph, mud puddle, never, next, no good, parallel parking, parents, park, parking lot, people, pizza, plus, presentation, puddle, push, red garter, red garter in, redneck, reflex, reverse, road, road group, road test, roger, salamanca, sam, sauce, schedule, school, seat, second, secondhand, secondhand crack, senior, senior year, sierra, skateland, smoking, spectacular, star wars, straight, strange, surreal, suv, texting, thanks, three point turn, time, times, tire, tires, traffic, trooper, truck, turn, van, vehicle, victoria, what the hell?, window, wright, zone
After what seems like forever– and still, like no time at all– it’s my last day of driver’s ed in Cattaraugus. Sam will pick me up at quarter after nine, we’ll arrive around ten, take our final exam, then wait around until eleven-thirty for the last road group ever with Mrs. Alico, Jesse, and Victoria.
It’s almost surreal. It hasn’t sunk in yet that I won’t have to get up at five-thirty tomorrow to go to Mark and Karen’s early. It hasn’t been quite realized that next week, I won’t have to go to Cattaraugus and see the rolling green hills and patchy forests pass me by.
It has definitely been an experience I’ll keep with me forever. Despite the hassle and the long drive, I’ve learned a lot– not just about driving– and had some interesting times with people I might never have spoken to otherwise.
Some memories…
~ first day of road group, &the first day of class.
~ “Victoria, you’re going to hit the curb” and she clunks her forehead trying to look out the window.
~ “Sam, are you straight ?!”
~ Almost getting killed by a freak driver who cut in front of us after blazing through two lanes of traffic. Thanks Sam, and her reflexive braking.
~ The first or second day of road group: Victoria saying “I’m no good at turning.” The rest of us: “Oh Christ.”
~ The Red Garter Inn and it’s spectacular view. Plans being made for a birthday/senior year celebration there for Sam, KT and I.
~ Going to Gowanda in the Driver Ed van.
~ My mother almost smoking and blowing the school up. No one told her there was a freaking gas leak in the parking lot where she was waiting for us.
~ Victoria saying, “I’m no good at backing,” and almost crashing us into a guard rail.
~ “Mayday, mayday; Mrs. Alico is not present. Do you read me, Roger? …what say we hijack the keys and take a joyride?”
Jesse: “What crack have you been smoking?”
Me: “I went to the Avett Brothers concert last night. It might be secondhand crack. Mayday, here she comes, mayday!”
~ No one hitting the cones! Not even Victoria!
~ Drunk driving while texting… in go-karts.
~ “My friend thinks the boys here are cute.” “Thanks, Sam.”
~ Redneck washing his hands in a mud puddle! the girls in class knew exactly who we were talking about, too.
~ Gripping the seat for dear life every time Victoria turned, backed, or parallel parked.
~ Going to Burger King, talking about being high and Star Wars cups and what kind of sauce to dip in.
~ Being very confused about make-ups, “I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about.”
~ Having Victoria actually be good at expressway driving… what the hell?
~ Jesse’s wry sense of humor.
~ Planning a pizza escape.
~ Actually talking to the kids from Cattaraugus, haha.
~ The ride to and from Gowanda with Mr. Wright, Sierra and Brendan. Verrrry funny.
~ Presentation day (yesterday): discovering Mr. Wright got his only ticket because he was traveling 97 mph in a 43 mph zone… Having our presentation be funny when I started talking (extremely strange)… Our delicious drawing of a tire.
~ Driving all over the countryside.
~ Talking to a cool trooper.
~ Never crashing the car.
I’m not going to miss it, but I will miss parts of it. The daily driving was a huge plus that I really would like to be able to keep doing, but I doubt it will happen. My road test is scheduled and my driver’s ed certificate should come in around the beginning of school to take money off of the insurance if I ever get a vehicle. But for now I’ll just be content driving whenever I’m allowed to, I guess, although I will push the issue. I’m busy enough without my parents having to cart me everywhere.
But it’s time to start getting ready. Only an hour and fifteen minutes before my last day of driver’s ed.
Filed under: Random Thoughts, Writing | Tags: anything, away, basis, blog, breath, change, college, consciousness, daily, damned, desperately, don't, eager, enter, everything, evolve, evolved, experience, fail, family, few, final, friends, future, gowanda, guitar, guitar riffs, happen, high school, hit me, individual, jam, jamming, last, lately, leave, left, life, living, made, make, make the most of it, making, mark, me, mind, miss, mold, moment, my mark, my own, new, not, nothing, offer, old, one, own, person, possibilities, preparing, queen, riffs, same, school, seeing, senior, sense, short, so they say, stream of consciousness, succeed, terrified, terror, think, thinking, time, transition, want, wasted, weeks, what if?, will be, write, Writing, year, young, youth
As I sit here jamming to the piercing guitar riffs of Queen, I think on the possibilities the future has to offer. What’s new, right? I do that on a daily basis. Lately, though, it’s started to hit me… in a few short weeks I will be considered a senior, or at least in the transition to one. I will be preparing to enter my final year of high school.
I don’t want to! But in the same breath I do; I desperately, desperately do. I want to go out to experience what life has to offer, I want to leave my mark on the world. I want to be my own person, my own individual.
But I’ll miss not living with my family and seeing my friends daily when I’m away in college. I know I will make new friends, but what of the old ones? What will happen?
Anything can happen in that last year of school. Everything or nothing can change me, mold me into the person I will be when I leave for college.
I’m eager, and yet I’m terrified. What if I fail? Or, what if I succeed?
I know I’m not making much sense at the moment, but I didn’t start this blog with a set sense of what I wanted to write about in mind. It just kind of evolved with my stream of consciousness.
In any case, I want to make the most of what time I have left in Gowanda. “Youth is wasted on the young,” they say. Well, I’ll be damned if it’s wasted on me.
Kick Drum Heart 