Remember Driver’s Ed? Some had private lessons. I drove with a horde of classmates from high school, together crushing those feeble cones that dared stand between us and a license (at least that’s how I remember it). Then, of course, I drove all over the county with my napping instructor in the passenger seat. It was slow going, but I attained that shiny laminated card which simultaneously made me competent to steer a machine of destruction and, a few years later, made me legally able to imbibe magical can’t-drive beverages. Surrounded by a big rolling metal shell, I was more powerful than ever before. Driving was freedom, and I was a master of the road.
Until I started driving in Northern Virginia.
