It was quite fortuitous that on Wednesday I became a buddhist. St.
Paul got his on the road to Damascus; I saw the light on the road to
Lake Oswego. One minute I'm driving on 217, a tense, alert twist of
muscle; the next, I'm accepting, letting go. The previous me would
have killed on Wednesday evening, deeming it a mercy, but no, instead I
witnessed every extraordinary slow moment as it passed, three hours of
near-bliss, brought to me by a nurse and someone who wasn't quite a
counselor.
Some background: the tale began, as many do, with my wife. Because
daughter number one qualified for Nationals, we will spend much time
this summer on the road, going to Highland Dance competitions here and
in Canada. Thus daughter number two was limited in her choices of
weeks to take Driver's Ed. The penalty for missing a single session of
this class is having to write an accident report. So important is the
content, the penalty for missing two sessions is failure.
Laura found that a class in the correct two weeks was being offered by
Lake Oswego school district. This is a twenty minute drive away, half
an hour in traffic. We enrolled Julia. On Monday she went to the
first class, in which she learned that no one, ever, should hold a
steering wheel at ten and two; three and nine is now the correct
answer, or lower yet, to avoid damage to thumbs should the air bag
deploy. She also learned that the book Emily used--you remember the
one about no-zones and such--is no longer any good. Thirdly, she
returned with the news that a parental session is mandatory. Laura was
too busy with work, so yesterday evening, back down 217 Julia and I
went.
The auditorium in Lake Oswego middle school has a ceiling--I assure you
I know every inch of it well now--that reminds one of those things they
used to put in ranch houses out West in the nineteen sixties. A kind
of upside down bubbly, ruffled look, achieved with asbestos, which then
slowly and over time, rains down particles that get into the lungs of
the unsuspecting folk below. We had a choice of sitting for three
hours at a school lunch table, or sitting in one of those plastic
chairs that you rent for a dollar apiece at party stores. But we were
promised cold water at half time, and cookies.
The introduction was brief because, the person doing the introduction
said, there was so much ground to cover. So quickly up to the
microphone stepped a lady who undid one thing said in the introduction.
She was not, in fact a "counselor," she said, and should have added,
"in fact I have no qualifications at all, beyond having had a son
injured in a car accident." Her opening question was, "Where should
you hold your hands on the wheel? Anyone? Anyone?" For an hour and a
half she gave us her views on driving, the choicest among which views
were: that all drivers in the world should respect a ten pm curfew,
that drivers should never wear large coats because one person in a
crash once slipped out of her coat and under the seat belt, that anyone
who drinks before the age of twenty one damages the brain and may never
be able to make adult decisions. She explained that people who
understand her version of polite behavior make excellent drivers and
that a child who doesn't clean his room is not ready to drive.
Parents, she thought, should have written contracts with their children
so that expectations are clear. Her son was crashed into by an
undocumented person who has returned to Honduras.
The rest was mostly about crashes--it's wrong to call them accidents
when they're really crashes--except for the part about how responsible
people obey laws even when no one's watching. This, just as I was
about to suggest to Julia that we fill out the form that proves we had
attended...and nip out the back door at half time.
Part two was a trauma nurse on the subject of...crashes. She had not
been present for part one, so she began by explaining that we should
not call crashes, "accidents." And then she explained about air bags
and thumbs all over again. And then she told the very same stories the
first speaker had told, even down to the detail of a police officer
knocking on someone's door and the mother saying, "He's dead, isn't
he?"
Had I not been converted to buddhism, there would have probably been
carnage. Instead, at nine pm, we all applauded, raced out the door,
started our engines and did wheelies in the parking lot.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon
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