Around the same time, Dad would let me change gears as we drove our old Chrysler Galant. Any possible excuse to be involved in the driving. We got so used to it that it became the norm and we would carry a conversation as we came home together from school. It even got to the point where Dad would forget to change gears himself when he was alone in the car.
A few years later, after Mum had banned the trike from the indoors (and my being far too big for it by that stage anyway), I used to pretend the house was a rally stage. Every door was a ‘caution!’ corner between two trees, and each corner was loose with gravel or snow or mud. Even if I was walking normally I would be grabbing handfuls of opposite-lock in my head. But most of the time my hands were out in front of me, scrambling at the imaginary steering wheel and smashing the gearknob into second gear as the rear quarter-panel kissed one of the trees mid-corner. Often I would sneak off to go and sit in the car and practice driving, visualising myself cruising to school to pick up the girl I had a crush on that week.
When I was eleven I drove for the first time in a Holden SB Barina City on a fire-track half the size of the car. It was just before midnight and my father and I were setting up camp to get a few hours sleep before the Leonid meteor shower rained down above us. The experience lived up to all of my expectations. It was a world of freedom and responsibility that I craved.
From that point on, cars were it for me. Not even cars -- driving. I didn’t care what I was driving, as long as I was. I still have very same feeling today. For me, the sensation of driving provides me with one of the greatest feelings of freedom that I’ve experienced to date.
