Driving in Houston

 

Pixabay

I failed my driving test twice before I passed it. I was sixteen at the time and had a beginner’s license. The written test proved a breeze, but with the grading officer as a passenger? Well, the experience grew brutal.  After starting the car and maneuvering fifteen feet ahead, he had me drive around the block and park back at the DMV office. I don’t remember what I did or didn’t do in that short ride, but mortification joined me that day.

My mom, sister, and cousin were waiting to congratulate me on getting my license and witnessed my quick return. With wide eyes, they asked, “What happened?”

I shrugged. “I failed.” Humiliation clung to me without limits. Why couldn’t the Earth open a hole so I could crawl into it? My mom drove us home.

I never had a chance to practice driving before the test. My mom refused to let me take her vehicle because she feared I’d wreck it. Her prediction came true when we moved to Houston. I had nine wrecks that first year, but it wasn’t in her car. Yes, you read that right. NINE!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. At the age of 18, I married. Hubby’s ten-year-old clunker became my wheels, too. The thing didn’t even have heat or air conditioning. We sweated torrents in the summer and broke icicles away from our noses in the winter, but I gained experience as a driver while we lived in Oklahoma.

When we moved to Texas and pastored a small, country church, we bought a stick-shift sedan. It heated us in the winter, but it had no cooling for summer. The temperature registered 116 F for days at a time during the summer months. When we exited the car, we looked as though we had been swimming in our clothes. The land cracked under this brutal heat, but we watered it with dripping sweat each time we went outside.

Winter or summer, I drove our stick-shift around country roads and didn’t see other vehicles for miles at a time. Not one accident in the five years we lived there. I’ve learned, right? Wait till I move to Houston! Remember? NINE in one year!

From the north plains of Texas, we moved about 100 miles east and arrived in Irving, TX. Uh oh! It is the city where I failed my first driving test, but now I have my license, and I’m experienced. I’m familiar with streets and locations, and I don’t drive into the big city of Dallas. No worries.

But! Houston is ahead of me. NINE is in my future.

After almost four years in a lovely Irving church where my hubby was pastor, a church in Houston wanted us as their first family.

So, we headed south.

Houston, TX

Huge Houston contains zillions of highways with multiple loops to ring the city, and it is widespread. The Med Center is well-known, but it requires a good car to get through the maze to visit sick parishioners, and our stick-shift had seen its better days.

We left Houston and drove south to Dickenson, Texas to buy a Gay car.  Yeah, yeah, I know my name is Gay, but the dealership in Dickenson is also named Gay. The dealership isn’t homosexual, and neither am I, but we are both Gay.  I drove a Gay Pontiac with my name, Gay, on the back fender. Crazy, huh?

Then the accidents began.

My name on the car had nothing to do with the collisions. I had never been forced to drive defensively, but Houston requires that style of motoring, and I hadn’t learned that technique yet.

The first catastrophe was my fault. Yes, I admit it. I did it. Fortunately, I was alone when a driver, who had the green light, zoomed into the intersection and crashed into my passenger side.

Police

The officer asked me to sit in his squad car. We needed to get out of traffic, and he wanted to ask a few questions.

“Officer, my light was yellow when I went through it. I didn’t know it was about to turn red.”  He issued me a warning. Nice guy, really nice.

I drove home to show my hubby. The entire passenger side of my station wagon was caved in. I assume the other driver’s car took a big hit too, but at that moment, my sympathy was for myself.

We took our beautiful, blue and white Pontiac back to the dealership for repair. A costly repair.

The next month, to the day of the first accident, I had crash number two. Yep. You read that right. Month to the day. But I was innocent!  Except for that defensive driving thingy. When in Houston, one must anticipate someone running a stop sign. (Bear in mind, the driver who hit me didn’t think about me rushing a yellow light. turning red)

A lady ran a stop sign, broadsided me, backed up, and fled the scene. I chased her in my car, and a kind man followed us. When the police arrived, the Good Samaritan explained how the woman ran the stop sign and barreled into me. The lady was not a citizen and had no license. That’s why she bolted. She got a ticket. I later learned she never paid for it.

When we returned to the dealership for repairs, the head honcho scratched his head, “Didn’t we just replace the side of this very car?”

Bright red with embarrassment, I turned around and left hubby to explain. Now get this! The repair bill was less than $100 of the first restoration. Wow! They gave me the preferred customer discount!

 

To Be Continued. Stay tuned. You don’t want to miss the next wreck.

Sarah Series

 

Remembering My Mom on Mother’s Day

 

My mother lives in heaven now. I hope your mom lives on earth, and if you are fortunate, she lives near you. Mine left Earth thirty-five years ago, and I miss her every day.

Other than a faint resemblance, we are nothing alike.

This petite lady loved vanilla ice cream and ate it every day. I’d tease her and say, “Try one with pecans in it.” She’d respond, “Why? I like this one.” No matter her diet, she weighed one hundred pounds to the day she died. She ate anything and everything. As for me? I work hard to keep from gaining, and most of the time, I don’t succeed.

She was famous for her meals. And boy, oh boy, do I wish for those. I wish you could sit at her table and enjoy smothered steak, gravy, creamed potatoes, corn cut from the cob, slathered in butter, and fresh snapped green beans. Top off the meal with banana pudding for dessert. And those chicken and dumplings? Fried pies? Oh my. Delicious memories.

I hate meal preparations, and it shows in my cooking attempts. Even when I follow her recipes, my dishes don’t taste like hers. Some people can cook and others can’t. I’m in the “can’t” section.

She also baked and kept goodies on hand. Her Devil’s Food cake was beautiful. I buy cake mixes and hope for something similar. It’s not anywhere near the same.

Mom refused to read or pray in public and often declined to attend a Bible study for fear she’d be called upon to do so. Such things are normal for me. She bragged on my speaking abilities, and I boasted about her cooking and managerial skills.

Our relationship was like oil and water. She wanted to cling to me, and I ran like a maniac toward independence.

I’m thankful we spent the last ten years of her life in harmony. We truly loved each other and came to admire our differences.

Stepmoms and adopted moms hold special places in the lives of children. Their kids were born before they met them. Applaud them for loving the child from another woman’s body.

Let’s not forget the unsung heroes. Teachers who work with kids each day, and others like our daughter who care for the hurting, abandoned little guys. Aunts. Grandmothers.

Authors who write children’s books. Women play an important role in the lives of children.

 All Women influence children.

 I hope each of you ladies have a wonderful Mother's Day.

I wrote a book about a woman who wanted to marry and have children but couldn't because of a family scandal.

 Family Secrets

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digging into the Past and Finding Worms

 

 

I recently signed up with Ancestry, the online business that helps build family trees and solve mysteries.

Why didn’t my folks share stories about their past? Why don’t I ask questions about our ancestors? If they had shared, I might not have signed up for this DNA place.

My family seemed to take pride in keeping secrets.  Years ago, I wrote a book about family secrets. It’s a good read, even if I say so myself.

                                                            On Amazon

I wrote a blog previously about my aunt. She told me she would go to her grave without revealing a family scandal. I asked her to tell me what or who it involved, but she refused. And so she did what she said she’d do…died without telling me. But why mention it to me at all?

I’m discovering a few crazy people in my ancestry tree, but I already knew my aunt was one of them. This lady kept a picture album, and underneath a photo of a barn, she wrote, “This is where my heart was broken.”

Did my aunt’s heartbreak have something to do with the family scandal she mentioned? I doubt Ancestry will have the answers to that question. I want to know about the lives of my family, not just their names.

While searching Ancestry, I discovered the name of my dad’s first wife. I knew he had one, but I haven’t learned the year they married or the year they divorced. Evidently, they had no children. I think I would have known about their possible offspring, but then again, maybe not. 

My dad, in his elder years, had a stroke and lived in a facility. After my mom died, he told me his first wife came to see him. He told her he would never marry again. Was this story true, or was it imagination in his challenged brain?  He also spoke about a son he had by a woman other than my mom, or his first wife, but he couldn’t tell me anything about the guy. So now, I’m looking for answers in Ancestry.

My lineage came from England and Ireland. This, I knew already, but I want to know when they came to the United States and their stories about living in their new country.

So far, I’ve discovered they farmed after their arrival, but farming was a common occupation back in the formative years of the Republic.

I have a niece and nephew who are interested in our family background, but other members of my family don’t care about it.

The one thing that comes to mind is this: my folks didn’t want people to know their secrets.

But then, who does? How many secrets will you take to your grave? In the future, if a relative digs into your past, will they find a half-brother you didn’t know existed?

Or you might find no records of your parent’s marriage. Perhaps you will discover your father was a polygamist.

DNA connects us to people, but those people may not want to be found. My daughter used a different research company and found a perfect DNA match. This guy has the name of my grandfather, and he looks like a young version of my grandfather. I sent him two private messages, but he doesn’t want to correspond with me. I know he is a relative. Perhaps he doesn’t want to hurt someone or know his ancestor’s secrets. But why sign up with a company that helps you find info?

I suppose digging into the past can open a can of worms.

worms

https://foxmind.com/games/can-of-worms/