[FleetsidePaul]

I learned to drive a stick in my brothers 71 Roadrunner with a 340 and a 4 speed. It was intimidating for a 16 year old kid. Especially with my big brother threatening to beat my azz if I messed up his car. (No pressure at all ) But I did fine.

When I bought my first motorcycle A 71 RD200 for 100 bucks. I had no idea how to ride it. I had to ask the guy I bought it from "How do you ride this thing?' He thought I was kidding but I wasn't. The only bike I had ever ridden was a Honda 90 with an automatic. But I did fine on that too until I ran out of gas 5 minutes later. (no gas gauge). Looking back the guy should have told me that the bike needed gas. I only made it about a half a mile before I was pushing it. Lesson learned. I never ran out of gas again.

When I was in school they still had drivers education class. There was a girl in my class that was scared to death to drive. She was kind of a PITA because she was always holding up the show with her nonsense.

So the day came that we had to drive on the freeway. Everybody did fine and then it was her turn. She looked very determined and took the wheel and as we sped down the on ramp a suicidal kamikaze bird smashed into the windshield right in front of her.SPLAT!. She freaked out. She took her hands off the wheel and covered her face and screamed. The instructor had to grab the wheel and pull over and clear the dead bird off the cowl.
I remember thinking of all the people in the world. It had to be her. i was just driving that car a few minutes earlier and if that happened to me I would have just turned on the wipers and kept going.

Poor thing. She was really shook up. But she did get her license.And if anyone deserved it she did.She worked hard to overcome her fear.