I think my dad started teaching us how to drive really early on. We spent, what seemed like as a child, a lot of time in the car since we lived at times up to 3 hours away from our grandparents. But I can remember dad asking questions or making up games for us to play in the car that I have often thought about now while driving myself.
I learned at an early age (probably by ten or twelve) what the dark spots in the middle of the road are just because my father asked. I think the question was something along the lines of "Do you know what those dark spots in the road mean?" I'm not sure if I had something smart aleck to say back to him (that skill must have developed with age) but of course I didn't know. He said the mean that there is a dip in the road. Every time a car goes over it the car jostles a little bit and some oil drops from the bottom of the car leaving dark patch on the road. So I am sure I sat staring out the windshield looking for a dark spot to see if the man was right. And he was. To this day I see a dark spot ( the bigger the dark spot the bigger the dip mind you) and I know that there is something coming up.
Dad also would have us guess the time we would arrive at our destination. We knew the approxiamtes pretty well after many drives and we would venture 3:53, or 3:57, or 3:56. And whoever got the closest got bragging rights, for about 2 minutes, but Dad always won. My brother and I came to realize, maybe by gentle reminders by our mother, that dad had control of the speed of the car and thus ultimate control over the time of arrival.
In 11 years I have driven THOUSDANDS of miles. In my own vehicles from North Texas to Appalchia and North Carolina serveral times. Back and forth to SMU for almost three years, navigating the back roads of Cooke County to see the scenery, and now around Temple, and venturing back up to visit Gainesville. Sometimes I still look for the dark spots in the road to see when there will be a dip, mostly it's just habit now to see them, and I still try to calculate my arrival time as closely as possible but probably not proving as accurate as my father ever was or will be.
Ehh I guess I still learn stuff from the Ol' Man but now I am much better at the smarty aleck remark ;).
