The Joy of Driving

I was always the last or near to last kid to be picked when it came to sports – even by my own family, even by my own dad.  I just wasn’t that good at any of it.  Now if there had been a team for best Nancy Drew mystery readers, I would have been in the running.  But baseball?  Forget it!

In college, I dropped the swimming class in favor of archery to fulfill the physical education requirement at my college.  I wasn’t great at archery either, but it was much easier for me to participate in a sport that required that I stand still.

Any personal sense of competency that I have ever had has more to do with the mind than the body.  And most of my memories about physical endeavors, highly embarrassing and painful at the time, are, in hindsight, filled with humor. . .like the time I took a baseball to the stomach when my dad was pitching to me because I froze when the ball came at me (now you know why my dad didn’t pick me to be on his team after that – he really felt bad about the bruise) . . . or the time I knocked myself unconscious by trying to imitate a sledding trick of racing towards a parked car only to veer sharply left at the last minute to get past the teasing boys blocking our way – yep, I froze again and ran right into the bumper of the car . . . or the time as a young adult that I got on skis in the slightly slanted driveway of a friend and was so terrified of the incline that I cried and sat down in the snow . . . or the time my cousins and I (well me, really) broke my Aunt Bonnie’s window pitching ball in the house when I missed the ball that sailed past my ducking frame and shattered the glass . . .

I could go on, but what would be the point?  There’s only so much of these laughing memories one woman can take, after all.

Thus it was with perhaps understandable, if inappropriate, pride that I received the left-handed compliment of a local police officer giving me my third speeding ticket from his own hand.

It was Easter Sunday.  And folks around these parts will know how silly it was for me to be speeding . . . right past his house.  My only defense is that my mind was elsewhere (hardly any comfort to my fellow motorists, I know).

Pulling me over at the top of Jack Mountain and going through our by-now usual ritual – “Beth,” he sighs.  “I know,”I respond.  “Didn’t you see me?” he asks.  “No.”  But it’s Easter and so there’s a new wrinkle: “I can’t believe you’re making me do this!  It’s Easter Sunday and you’re a preacher!”  “I know,” I sigh.  “Don’t feel bad.  It’s not your fault.  It’s mine.”  (Who knew pastoral duties extended to comforting the police officer who feels bad for having to give you a ticket?)

After all the ritual of paper exchange and ticket writing and explaining is completed comes the real surprise for me: “Have you had any driving training?”  “Not other than driver’s ed when I was a kid,” I respond.  “Well, I will say this: you take those curves like a pro.”

Like I said before, the pride I feel is inappropriate to the situation.  But it is real.

James-Bond blue BMW Z3 drop top -
the object of my affection

I love to drive a car, especially in the mountains.  And I drive too fast.  Before I left my previous life to go to seminary, I leased a sports car.  It’s the only physical thing that I have ever loved.  And I did love that car.

Sitting atop Jack Mountain on Easter Sunday with my ticket in hand, I pondered this thing about me and was pleased.  When it comes to driving, I am competent, able, deft.

I don’t know why this gives me such pleasure.  Maybe it’s simply the little girl inside who was never picked first for the team knowing that she’s good at something.