Yesterday's entry about traveling to Yankee Stadium alone by subway has me recalling other things that have changed significantly about New York City since I was a youth.
For example, that's where I learned to drive a car. From the time I first got a Learner's Permit there were plenty of places I practiced. Sometimes my family would go somewhere, such as Westchester County or Connecticut, that had quiet country roads and were the safest places for me to get behind the wheel.
Nonetheless, the best of all was really Manhattan itself, especially because that's where I lived. Of course, this was many, many years ago and the city was quite a different place. But compared to East Squodunk let's say, there was still plenty of vehicular traffic.
Cars and trucks still clogged the streets during rush hours back then, and pedestrians still had to watch their step, but all in all, you rarely got stuck for what seemed like an eternity just to make a light.
Although I'd been a passenger my entire life until then, and was very familiar with city streets, as a beginning driver I did my best to be careful, and was sure to strictly obey the traffic rules and regulations.
As time went by and the day of my driver's test neared, I went out to practice with some of my already licenced friends. Since we all lived in the same neighborhood I generally drove around with them on the city's uptown East Side.
At the same time, I played a lot of base and basket ball in Central Park and so was pretty familiar with the place. That's why it occurred to me one day that the park would be a perfect location for my friends and I to take the car. Because there was a roadway running along the perimeter of the park, inside the walls, that went from Central Park South (actually 59th Street) and up to 110th. Completing the oval covered about five or six miles.
A particular friend of mine, his name was Kenny, accompanied me quite a few times as my test date drew near. He was a pre-law student at Columbia University and was able to work out a reasonable amount of free time.
Well, one afternoon Kenny came over to accompany me on a practice session and I headed for the park. The car we were in was my mother's big, four-door, blue Dodge with a standard transmission. There was an entry to the park drive on 90th Street and Fifth Avenue, only a couple of blocks from my apartment. I entered the park there, turned right and headed uptown.
I leisurely began to motor north, chauffeuring Kenny, and listening to his motoring advice, eventually reaching 110th Street where I followed the roadway as it wound it's way back downtown. When we got to 59th Street, the southern end of the park, I exited onto the Avenue of the America's, still called Sixth Avenue back then.
I drove a block south on Sixth Avenue, staying in the far left-hand lane, so that I could make a turn at the corner, drive around the block, and then head back uptown to my home. As I sat there waiting for the light to turn from red to green, a cabbie neared my mother's car on the right side, angling the nose of his cab in a way that appeared to me that if I moved forward, I'd surely clip his taxi. Obviously, he too wanted to make a left-hand turn and planned to cut me off.
As a beginner, I had no idea of what to do in this kind of situation and was quite afraid that even if he made his turn ahead of me, the cabbie might damage my mom's car. For a seventeen year old, inexperienced in driving in city traffic, there was considerable pressure on me to begin with, now compounded by nervousness and high stress, bordering on panic.
So what I did was, I followed the instructions in my learner's manual precisely. I made sure that the transmission was in neutral, then carefully set the manual parking brake, then looked in the rear-view mirror to be sure that I'd be safe.
And then I opened my car door, quickly stepped out and scrambled over the hood. In only a moment or two I was at the cabbie's door. Since it was April, and before global cooling like we have now, it was warm outside. So, the cabbie's window was open wide.
I reached inside, shook him several times, then started to pound him with both fists, while trying to crawl inside to really do some bodily harm. A few moments later, Kenny's hands were on my belt and shirt collar and he dragged me out of the taxi, still thrashing and screaming as I kicked the taxi door as hard as I could.
We returned to our vehicle and continued our journey home without any further event. But, I truly believe that although I was supposed to be the student that day, I taught that taxi driver, and anyone else who might have witnessed the scene, a life-lesson they never forgot. And that's only one small reason as to why the streets of New York City are the greatest school in the world.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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