High School Teaches Only One Life Skill. Driving

I don’t remember anything from high school except learning to drive

Out of all the academic things I learned in high school, the only thing I can recall actually still using today is driving. I learned to drive at the age of 15 in my junior year of high school.

Driving class was probably the only class anyone wanted to voluntarily sign up for. The class being full and hardly anyone missing it gave a good indication that everyone wanted to take it. After all, it’s the class that will allow you freedom to drive to Prom yourself, hang out with your friends and finally get a car.

The class was relatively easy, but it was the book portion of the class, so completing it didn’t mean you could just go right out there and start driving. My teacher was Coach Pitts after learning his book portion of driving, you had to pass with a B or better to be able to move on to the next portion, the actual summer behind-the-wheel class at Todd Stadium.

Todd Stadium was a huge football stadium that was used for all high school events in Newport News. Outside the stadium was a massive parking lot which was turned into a driving range during the day for students. There were orange construction cones all over the place with some parts of the parking lot doused with water to simulate a wet road, buckets of soap to create a skid pad, and other cones to practice parallel parking. On the other side of the parking lot were air conditioned trailers where we receive instruction so we wouldn’t have to stand out all day in the sweltering heat and on another side of the range were city student cars for us to practice driving in. There were dozens of kids from all over the city everywhere in their little huddles with their instructors. I don’t remember who my instructor for this portion of the class was but we alternated between different instructors for each section of the range.

Skid pad was my worst nightmare. It’s where the instructors soaked the car’s wheels with soap, and I had drive a ways up the pad, and then force the car into a skid. The goal was I had to turn the wheel into the direction of the skid to maintain control of the car. Well I didn’t do too well only because I yanked the wheel too hard and instead of going into a skid, I went into an almost full 360. I made a C for that portion of the course, likely because the instructor would’ve felt sorry for failing me. Luckily though, I made good grades on the rest of the course. The instructor complimented how smooth I changed lanes, accelerated out of turns, driving defensively and carefully over bridge grates. We have one draw bridge in Newport News which he had me drive over and back.

There were also some terrifying moments I still remember to this day exactly. When learning to drive, it wasn’t just you and the instructor. It also included 2 other students in the back of the car who had to sit in the back and watch their short teen lives flash before them while you make all your mistakes. Of course the instructor had his own wheel and brakes on the other side of the car to immediately take back control of the car from you, but that didn’t make it any less comforting. One time I was a passenger in the back while another student took the wheel. The ride was smooth at first, but then as we approached a light with stopped cars, he underestimated his speed and was coming in hot. Once the driving instructor realized were weren’t going to stop in time, he slams the brakes on his side, the wheels went into a full screech as we near-missed hitting the back of the car in front. I wanted out. Although there were no accidents on the driving range, one of my friends in our group unfortunately tried to drive on her own before she was ready while out with her friends and got not in just one accident, but two car accidents within weeks apart and came to class with a bruised face.

But overall, learning to drive was fun despite the terrifying moments. Even after I got my license, my Mom still wouldn’t let me drive though because she was scared. It wasn’t until I bought my first car a rusty red 1980 Honda 1500GL with manual transmission for $200 off one of my friends, that we called The Bucket, that I really learned how to drive on my own. Even though I bought the car, it still sat in our driveway for weeks because I didn’t know how to drive a stick. But then my bestie at the time, Skeeter, taught me how to drive it and I’ve been driving stick-shifts most of my life and even drove cross-country.

In memory of Coach “Pops” Pitts. 1944 – 2021. Thanks Coach for teaching me how to drive.