Driver's Ed

Coach Ashby was my instructor for Driver’s Ed.  At this time he was no longer a coach.  Coaching, I guess, is like being a Doctor or a Marine.  Once a coach, always a coach.  Even if he wasn’t my coach, he was no longer Mr. Ashby.  He was and forever will be Coach Ashby.  He was a legit teacher too.  Normally coaches taught Geography, History, or Health.  Not to take away from good teachers of those subjects, but coaches typically teach those, and the students usually suffer.

Anyway, Coach Ashby was my Biology teacher and my Driver’s Ed teacher.  After passing written exams, students picked their own groups of three and we got in the car and practiced driving under his instruction.  I think we went out in the car with him twice a week after school for a month or so.  My group consisted of myself, Nick, and Chris Taylor.  The first time we went out Chris was clearly the best driver.  He always used his signals.  He drove right at the speed limit.  He never got nervous when passing other cars.  Me?  My big issues were trying to continually turn the wheel on curves and using both feet. I had my left foot over the brake and right foot over the gas.  Not good practice. 

We were all nervous though.  Driving was a key component of independence.  Our parents had to all drive us around anytime we had to go somewhere.  This meant our schedules were dependent upon our parents (or older siblings).  Once we could drive, we had freedom.

Coach Ashby was nice enough, though the coach in him nearly brought him to yelling from time to time.   The car would need to be parked at the bus barn at the end of instruction.  Coach Ashby preferred it to be backed into its parking spot, so it could be easily pulled out.  We decided that Chris was the best backward driver.  So he had to do it.  Coach exited the car so he could open the gate.  It was a sliding chain link fence.  He motioned for Chris to go.  Nick and I were in the back seat.  The parking spot was right next to the gate on the other side of the other Driver’s Ed car that was already parked.  Chris slowly pulled into the lot, turned right, and after he was directly in front of the empty space popped the car in reverse after straightening the wheels.  Nick and I chatted, and I noticed the gate quickly approaching the rear window, “Chris you’re going to hit the fence!”  And bam! 

“I knew this would happen!” Chris said nearly in tears.  He was disgusted with himself.  He pulled forward a little and parked.  We exited to survey the damage. 

Coach Ashby ran right to the rear to check it out as well.  The bumper was smashed.  Chris was shaking.  He said he was coasting backwards and confused the gas for the brake.  Nick and I felt bad for our compadre, but we were both glad it wasn’t us in the driver’s seat.

The next day in Biology class, Coach took me aside and told me, “If anybody asks you, I was in the car when the accident happened, okay?”  I told him sure.  That was so uncomfortable, but I was gonna lie for Coach Ashby.  I liked the dude.  I asked Nick if Ashby approached him, and he said, “Yes.”  Alright, looks like we’re doing this.  This felt so bad but oddly fun.  It was exciting.  Almost like espionage or something.  Hooray insurance fraud.

I guess guilt overtook Coach Ashby because the next day in class he told me, “That thing I told you?”

“Yes sir?”

“Don’t worry about it.  Tell the truth.”

“Yes sir.”

Nobody ever asked me about it.  No lies were told on behalf of my teacher.  I failed the driving test the first time.  Parallel parking got me.  Ashby totally pulled the trigger too quickly.  I didn’t get a fair chance in my humble opinion.  But the retest was the next week and I got the car between the two yellow poles.  Made no contact with them!  Integrity of the field intact.  Inside the car and outside.

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