joyful2beeblogs

UjjainI grew up in a family with two wonderful  parents. My father taught each of us four kids how to drive safely. Over the years I learned first how to drive a Chevrolet Greenbriar van. With each car Daddy bought, I learned new skills and how to drive on slick roads, icy roads, snow, and slow traffic. I learned how to drive in my home town, Greenville, South Carolina, under Daddy’s watchful eyes.

After I graduated from a three year nursing diploma program, my future husband wanted me to get a Triumph Spitfire. I have to admit, I wanted it too. I had it all to myself for the year he was finishing his last year of college.

It was a beautiful gold color. I thought I looked pretty sharp with my cap with a Great Britain flag on it and the car’s top down riding down the highway. I drove it up to visit my fiance’ once and was surprised to see another car just like mine, behind me on the highway. What an unusual coincidence!

We then moved from Greenville, South Carolina, to New Orleans after he graduated with his Bachelors degree. In order to move our things across 600 miles, we rented a U-Haul truck. We packed our few belongings and a few pieces of furniture into the U-Haul truck. We found a loading dock with a ramp and carefully drove the Spitfire up the ramp and into the U-Haul truck .

That was a long ride. Then once we found the seminary and the married couple’s apartments, we drove around in the truck until we found another loading dock with a ramp to back the car out.  After that he began his studies on campus. From seminary, I drove 5 to 10 miles to work at a small hospital in New Orleans.

Not four or five months later, I was driving to work in the morning with the wife of a friend of my husband. She was also a nurse and worked at the same hospital. I had a flat tire and pulled over to change it. Thankfully, a nice man drove up and changed the tire with the spare.

As I prepared to pull back out into traffic, I looked back up the overpass and saw a car a long distance away. So I pulled out and looked again. The car was speeding, which I had not been able to assess at the distance taken into account. So within seconds, the driver hit my car’s rear end, pushed my car about 30 feet before he could disconnect from my car, and then drove another 30 feet before he could stop!

He was definitely speeding. It turned out he was a respiratory therapist who was also late for work. After being given a ticket for “improper start,” my poor, wrecked car was towed back to the seminary where we lived. I got a ride back to the hospital.

Thankfully, I was only shook-up. My friend unfortunately had whiplash and had to have physical therapy. But my beautiful, sporty, sexy, car was totaled! I think there were two problems. I had not changed my insurance over to Louisiana Insurance and not sure, (after 48 years) if I had a Louisiana drivers license or not. So I was at fault.

I really enjoyed driving that car! But realized after driving over the I-10 overpass over the Mississippi River in 5 o’clock traffic, that repeatedly using my left foot to push the clutch in while pressing the gas pedal with my right foot, while driving in stop-go traffic was very hard on my knee!

But boy, how I loved driving that car.