A hippie, a priest and Henry Kissinger were in an airplane...... Read More

Sometimes it’s not who you are, it’s who you know… I grew up in rural Western Pennsylvania, Beaver County.  My mother worked at the Beaver County Courthouse, she was a clerk in the tax office where all taxes, including motor vehicle, were collected. One sunny afternoon just after my junior year in college, I heard… Read More

In 1972 my California driver’s license expired after decades of coverage. I had moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to prepare my Ph.D. thesis for publication. I needed to renew my license to commute to the library, shop in the markets, and tour Detroit.  Just in the nick of time before the… Read More

The driving age in NJ, where I grew up, was 17 for some reason, even though in almost every other state in the union it was 16. Read More

In preparing him, Dad emphasized, “Jake, they don’t want to know your philosophy on life. They want to know what you would do as a driver in different situations.” J Read More

My Boss Dolly Dolly and Me at the DMV I was a fairly new school librarian when I got a position at the newly opened Harry S Truman HS in the Bronx.   We were a library staff of three – Dorothy was head librarian,  and Ann and I were the young newbies –  but… Read More

Then came the part I was dreading. Where do I go to wait for my road test? Read More

Turning sixteen was a coming-of-age ritual.  Not a sweet sixteen party—getting a driver’s license!  Having wheels in mid-twentieth century US meant mobility, freedom, unsupervised hanging out with friends, romance. Read More

Ah, the RMV. A mystical land where fluorescent lighting casts a pale pallor on dreams and paperwork morphs into origami dragons – as if fire-breathing was not enough. It is a realm where lines of people weave like drunken conga dancers, each step punctuated by the collective sigh of souls yearning for freedom (from the… Read More

Driving with Susy  Susy’s family lived on our block,  just a few houses away,  and our parents were close friends.  In my mind’s eye I can still see our mothers sitting together in our kitchen,  me watching in fascination as Susy’s mom twisted the string around her teabag to get the last drop of flavor.… Read More