I Love You to St. Joachim and Back

This summer Dan will take driving lessons. I see preparing him for his G1 as teaching an important life skill. A more practical incentive for leaving the basement than a couch fire. Being a county kid, I had my license early. I failed my first try at Windsor then opted for a second attempt at Tilbury. That time I passed and became a bonafide driver at the age of seventeen. And I was a late bloomer. Farm-girl Cathy thumbed her sun-burnt nose at the law and drove when she was fifteen. But that was just a truck full of corn.

The move to Toronto was a rude awakening for me. Fresh from Tecumseh, and bereft of my beloved Dodge Dart I was forced to take the TTC. Or rely on the vagaries of city drivers whose predilections were to dump you at the nearest streetcar stop. Back home nobody took public transit. What’s more, nobody got marooned at a bus stop. You just drove people home, no matter where they lived. So we chose our friends wisely. A Brouillette or a St. Pierre was a fifteen-minute drive into town. Returning a Chauvin or a Menard took forty-five minutes one way.