High school. Acid-washed jeans. Polo shirts, more specifically, Ralph Loren. Bright, loud colors. Mini-skirts. Teased-out hair, if long enough, coated with enough Aquanet to freeze it permanently in place. Jelly shoes, no socks. The Don Johnson Miami Vice look. And more than enough drama to write four seasons of Saved By the Bell or 90210. Dallas. Dynasty. Knots Landing. Soap operas for our Baby Boomer parents who dared to stay up later than 9 P.M. on a weeknight. Entertainment for teens consisted of mini-golf, coin-operated video games that cost one quarter, video rentals, movies at the theatre, or cruising around the neighborhood if you were fortunate enough to have a driver’s license and a car.

 After taking driver’s education through the summer months, utilizing a simulator before driving a car, and watching our instructor panic at one kid, I think his name was Andrew, driving with both feet. That was one thing I remembered about our class – Mr. Fredrick telling us to never do that!

And, like we all did in the 80s, we questioned his ability to teach the class, thinking we knew better. We didn’t. Not really. But that didn’t concern us. Until we were in the car, and Andy was behind the wheel.

Andrew just about killed the five of us in the car, Missy, Gina, Mr. Fredrick, and me.  

If you’ve never taken a driver’s education class, you don’t know how exciting it is for the kids enrolled. Several hours of book learning, followed up by specifics on how to properly signal, merge, parallel park, and drive using your right foot. Yes. Driving with only your right foot, and why it was so dangerous to drive with both your left and right feet. The sheer dexterity required to utilize both feet at the same time? It’s asinine to think about, considering most cars were manual transmission vehicles, meaning you would use your left foot for the clutch and the right foot for acceleration and braking. Trying to use both feet to drive an automatic transmission vehicle? You would need to unlearn what you were doing to drive a manual transmission, even if you could react fast enough with both feet. Which, according to Mr. Fredrick, was an impossibility.

“It’s not impossible,” Andrew whispered to me. “I can totally do that.”

“No. You can’t. Someone will get hurt.”

“No, Jack. They won’t because I know how to make it work.”  

I rolled my eyes, a thing I learned to do in the early days of high school. Between my Boomer Parents, acquaintances at my high school, and a few select friends, we all did it. That was our way of rejecting the audacity of any statement. And Andrew’s was dumb. Not only that, I tried it once, just to see if I could drive with both feet. Guess what?

“Mr. Penrose? Would you care to prove that you can drive with both feet? Come up here,” Mr. Fredrick motioned, “and show us how it’s done.” At the front of the class was a driving simulator. Like a flight simulator, you sat down in front of the steering wheel, a display in front of you resembling a movie theatre screen. You would have to follow the motion on the screen, staying inside the lines on the road and steer, accelerate, or brake, reacting appropriately to the terrain on screen. “Now, why don’t you show us, Mr. Penrose, how to drive with both feet.” Lucky for Andy, the simulator wasn’t a manual transmission. It was an automatic.

Andy made it thirty seconds before he had to brake rapidly, slamming into a barbed wire fence.

“And that,” Mr. Fredrick’s voice boomed, “is why we drive with our right foot. You may take your seat, Mr. Penrose.”

Andy was on the edge of crying, tears welling in his eyes. His glasses didn’t help hide the tears, not when his face was a bright crimson, cheeks rosy red like St. Nick at Christmas. Part of me wondered if Mr. Fredrick looked for ways to embarrass Andy. Fredrick was the basketball, baseball, and track coach of our school. He was a short, rotund little man with pudgy fingers who thought that motivation came from how loud he could blow the metallic whistle hanging from a red cord around his neck. I wondered if he took the driver’s ed gig to earn brownie points with our principal, Jonathan Todd. From a teen perspective, Mr. Todd didn’t care much for the coach. Maybe it was the number of games we lost in baseball and basketball. Or perhaps it was his attitude towards the faculty. Whatever it was, Mr. Fredrick liked to take it out on Andrew.

“Now then, boys and girls, we’ll take this outside. You will each have three opportunities to parallel park properly, accelerate, brake, signal, and make left and right turns, accelerating up to thirty miles an hour. We will come back here, and you will turn the car over to the next student. Any questions?”

Missy popped her gum and Gina played with her hair, not hearing a word that he said. “What?” Gina asked.

“Okay, Gina. You are first.”

“First at what?” the young blonde girl asked again. Gina twirled her hair onto her index finger. “I get to drive?” she asked. Her eyes lit up as if you had given her Daddy’s American Express Gold card and told her she could spend as much as she wanted. “Cool! Let’s go.”

“Wait a second, Gina.” Mr. Fredrick kept her from getting in the car. “What is the first thing we do before getting in the car?”

“Check our makeup, duh,” Missy said, popping her gum. “If it’s not perfect, we aren’t going anywhere. Isn’t that right, Gina?”

“Mhmm,” Gina answered, checking her makeup in the sideview mirror. She applied an extra layer of lipgloss, smacking her lips. “Ready!” she exclaimed, Missy giving her a high five.

“No. We’re not. Andrew, what do you do BEFORE you get in the car?”

“Vehicle inspection,” I coughed, trying to help out Andy. He looked scared but not about driving.

“Vehicle inspection.” Andy’s voice trembled with the answer. Why Andy was wearing a sweater on a day when the sun was beating down on us, I couldn’t understand. Then again, Andy was a strange guy. His glasses fogged up, the braces moving his teeth into a straight formation, making him even more awkward-looking, and the khakis with the penny loafers weren’t a stylistic choice for a guy. At least he wasn’t wearing socks. But his whole outfit was out of place for a California summer.  

Mr. Fredrick adjusted the baseball hat covering his curly black hair, tugging on the whistle. His hair stuck out in tufts around the edges and from under the brim. It looked like he wanted to blow the whistle but chose restraint instead. In fairness, we were outside, so if he did decide to blow it? It wouldn’t be all that bad. “Correct, Andrew. Gina, inspect the vehicle.”

“Why?”  she asked. “It looks fine to me,” she said, tilting her sunglasses down, scanning the outside of the car, putting her hands on her hips, and leaning to her left side. “What’s the point in doing that?”

“To make sure you aren’t running over glass, a nail, or a screw. Like,” Mr. Fredrick bent down on the other side of the car, “this one.” Standing up, he showed the class a 16-penny galvanized nail. “Driving over one of these,” he held it up, letting the sun glint off it, “would end your trip real quick. Flat tires are no laughing matter, especially at 60 miles per hour.” He tried to put the nail in his shorts pocket, but it slid out and hit the parking lot’s paved surface. It clinked, and he ignored it. “Okay, Gina. Now, what do you do?”

Gina’s eyes couldn’t be seen behind her sunglasses, white frames with dark lenses. If I had to guess, she had a spaced-out blank look. At least, that’s what her posture said. “Um, I don’t know.”

Mr. Fredrick closed his eyes. Pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath, he said, “Open the door, maybe? And get in the car?”

Her face lit up, showing off her bright, pearl-white teeth. “Oh yeah!”

Missy rolled her eyes. At least, I think she did. The way her head moved said she did, but she wore sunglasses similar to Gina’s, only her frames were black. “Duh,” Missy said under her breath.

Gina pulled on the door handle, but the car was still locked. Mr. Fredrick jingled the keys, handing them to Gina. She smiled again, shrugged it off, and unlocked the door, opening the car. The Chevy Chevette was the most gutless 4-cylinder gas-powered car in existence. Once she got inside, Mr. Fredrick let the rest of us climb in the back seat. Andrew was in the middle. I was on the left, behind Gina. And Missy sat to Andrew’s right.

I don’t know if Gina had been practicing with her Dad; he was a professional driver for a local limousine company. Or if she got lucky, but her turn was over in less than ten minutes, returning us to the parking lot. “Okay, Andrew. Your turn.”

I kept my seat, forcing Missy to get out. It wasn’t all that hard; Missy wanted to get out anyway. Her hair touched the interior roof, creating massive static, which generated a shock that made Andrew scream, ‘Ouch!’ as he climbed out of the car. I’m 100% sure his sweater didn’t help the static buildup. Gina climbed into the middle, sitting between me and Missy. Missy continued to pop her gum. Gina and Missy pointed and snickered at Mr. Fredrick’s hat, little tufts of hair sticking out from under it. I couldn’t imagine what they were snickering about, but it was funny to each of them.

“Andrew, now that your seatbelt is on, what’s next?” Mr. Fredrick jingled the keys. Andrew took them and slid them into the ignition, letting the Chevette roar to life; actually, it was less of a roar and more of a mew from a kitten. A V-8 could roar. Not a four-cylinder. I didn’t think it was possible, but you can grind the gears of an automatic transmission, freaking out both girls, myself, and Mr. Fredrick. “Um, okay. Next time, put your foot on the brake before you shift, Andrew.” The double-foot action of Andrew kept us from falling asleep. The Chevy was hot, and the air conditioning wasn’t strong enough to cool the five of us. Sitting next to Gina was lovely, the smell of cocoa butter oozing from her skin. Andrew almost made it out of the parking lot without sending a wave of jerking motions through all of us. That’s how I knew he was driving with both feet. Thankfully for all of us, Mr. Fredrick had a gas and brake pedal and a second steering wheel on his side for our safety, just in case.

We didn’t make it four blocks before Mr. Fredrick took over, bringing us back to the parking lot and ending the lesson. The three of us sitting in the back? We were scared out of our minds! Andrew, driving with both feet mind you, couldn’t negotiate turns, not sure which pedal to press, his mind confusing the brake for the gas, and vice versa. He failed to check his mirrors and almost drove us straight into a North American Van Lines moving truck! If it wasn’t for Mr. Fredrick’s quick thinking, we’d have been in an accident – that much is for sure!

Once we were back in the parking lot, and the car was turned off, Mr. Fredrick got out of the car and started cussing everything he could think of. I hadn’t heard of half of the words he was using, and the girls sat quietly. Neither girl said a word, and Missy stopped popping her gum for the first time since the class started. When he stopped cussing, he opened the doors. “Everybody out. Class is over. Andrew, I need to see your parents tomorrow.”

I don’t know what happened when Mr. Fredrick met with Andrew’s parents. I can tell you Andrew managed to total out five vehicles between his junior and senior years. All because he drove with both feet.