The Last Driver’s License
I could spend this month’s space and your time on some of the latest grim and downer drag news – the accident at an exhibition with a drag car in TN resulting in deaths, or a possible lawsuit against the proposed sale of the part of the non-profit NHRA. Those would be too easy. There is always a way to be overly negative these days – seems to be part of the age. Before you think I need to pour some kerosene around my ankles to keep the ants from climbing up to my candy-ass, stay with me.
We are whip-snapped daily by the roller-coaster U.S. “bread and circus” news media, particularly the 24 / 7 / 365 electronic media (yes, including DragRacingOnline sometimes). Paris In Jail! -- Wait, She’s Out! -- No, She’s Back In! --Out Now, For Reals! – for one silly stupid example.
It is set up to make us uneasy; to make us fear, to unsettle us, and jibe us into following the short-attention-span headline of the hour / day so we’ll get exposed to commercials pushing us to buy something for relief – a car or soap. It’s the American, capitalistic way, man! No wonder people want to “get off the grid.” Too much noise and not enough signal – except for DRO, of course.
Our household recently made a small step in doing just that by killing all our cable TV channels down to the bare minimum package -- $5/month. Took more than one phone call to get it done, too. The cable company fought our plan (by offering various increasing discounts) until they finally caved. They were dealing with my wife – I would have buckled when they went to half off. At least we didn’t go completely back to the ‘50s and rabbit ears; we kept the broadband Internet connection. Our 16-year old son has already found some UK website that allows him to watch his favorite TV shows and first run movies on his computer. More on him later.
We’re down from 150-plus cable channels to about 10 – including a couple of local network affiliates, two PBS offerings, the incredibly sappy soap-operatic Lifetime Movie Channel (LMC), and a scary, grisly Medical channel about the morbidly obese and various surgery tactics to save them. I think CourtTV is in this package, and it’s always good for some hilarity -- Phil Spector, we hardly knew ya! The only “sports” channel left is VS (Versus), which is the former Outdoor channel remade with massive injections of testosterone.
There you can watch PBR bull riding (The baddest and toughest competitors anywhere! And I don’t mean the bulls.); or the equivalent of human cock fighting (caged extreme kick-boxing); or trained hunting dogs trying to navigate a tricky natural landscape course (No! The duck is over there!), or even rounds of this year’s America’s Cup. It’s amazing how fascinating an America’s Cup sailing race can be. I’m serious. The competition is as tough as any drag racing round – just much s--l—o—w—e—r.
But I digress. The feel-good theme of this month is that our last child at home got his “he can drive by himself” driver’s license on the day he turned 16. It is very different (at least for me) from when his older sisters went through this rite of American youth. And it was much certainly different from when I got my license back in the (first) musclecar era.
It didn’t seem to be that big of a deal with the girls. They took the local high school’s Driver’s Ed course (a complete and useless waste of time IMO). My incredibly patient wife rode with, and observed them for mile after mile as they always had some crew to go meet or school expedition to take. They took to driving an automatic car with no issues, and I didn’t ask any questions when they said, “See ya, dad,” and drove off alone. I do admit I was wincing inside, but not too worried about their overall safety. They were sensible and a car was only a tool – driving it was just to get from point A to B: to go to school or meet friends or go to their jobs. They had car payments to make after all.
