Month: August 2006

My father is one of the people responsible for me being able to drive. There were several people including a classmate of mine in high school named Michael Murphy (I think Michael is out in Colorado; seems like the both of us ended up where we wanted to be, but that’s a topic for another post). Michael would let me drive his car after school through Westchester County, where I could practice without the intensity existing in my morning drive to high school during senior year. It was a relaxing drive during summer afternoons, allowing me to make most of my mistakes without fear. It also gave me an opportunity to learn more about life outside of the city. Practice sessions with Michael came while going to summer school after my senior year of high school for economics because I missed passing my ½ year class by one point on the state Regents exam. I find it somewhat ironic that my current job is based in the world of economics. No air conditioning in a historic school building in the summer can be brutal, leading to the enjoyment of air conditioning after class.

My father believed that the best way to learn was to be immersed into New York traffic, warts and all. He was determined to make sure that I passed my exam on the second try; I failed miserably the first time, mostly on wide turns and parallel parking. Both are things that I now do without thinking, though my parallel parking got a little slack while living outside of downtown Savannah for several years. The mistakes led to morning driving sessions to get to school. My brother got to experience these sessions two years later and decided that… we’ll just say that he didn’t put up with as much as I did.