Clear The Roads‍

Two normal, healthy camels can bring up four moving, baby dromedaries in four years - just the time it took me to learn to drive.
And since I would rather ride four wheels than four humps, I am not complaining.
But I do think my teachers were rather slow. And now, for the first time, I am attacking them in public and in print.

MY FATHER was my first instructor. He was not too experienced a driver, having obtained his license, people say, through much pity and some bribery, in another state, of course.
He was a forceful teacher who liked to shout "Shoot!" "O.K.," he would say, "into second and shoot!”
Once I was driving on a busy boulevard when my father yelled "Shoot!" So I sped ahead. Poofs of anger oozed out of him "Why didn't you turn left," he asked, "didn't I say 'shoot'!" Then he said "Shoot!"...

ANOTHER TEACHER, mixing maxs with mins, urged that no one, especially someone who couldn't drive, like me, should travel on a curving, hilly highway at night under the speed limit.
I would sit at the wheel, press down on the accelerator, and watch the automobiles in front move farther and farther away. Every few moments, my instructor would whisper, "Why are you slowing down? Speed up. UP! UP! UP!"
Once we were approaching a railroad crossing. I heard a roaring noise to my left and a whistle in the night. I lifted my foot off the gas pedal. "Why are you slowing down? Speed up. UP! UP! UP!" someone whispered harshly in my ear.
I soon had to change instructors.

ONE OTHER TEACHER, licensed, actually used my car to instruct himself. I think. I would drive about Middletown for 10 minutes and he would say. "Too much is no good. Stanley." He would then take over and jerk the car all over town.
Once while coasting down a hill, he kicked his feet high over the floor. "Where’s the brake? Where’s the brake?” he screamed.
I soon needed another instructor.
On one point all my instructors agreed: There is a place on the wheel where a driver must keep his hands. By 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock, I mean 10 o’clock and 2 o'clock, one said. In the middle, another said. On the bottom, offered a third. Your hands on the top, your elbows on the bottom. Where you feel best, which should be right over here. In your pockets.
In any case, some official in Hamilton last week approved my driving and handed me a slip of paper.
"In time, you'll learn,” he whispered.