Madam X Learns to Drive a Car at Sixty-Five

LEARNING anything that requires muscular skill and judgment of the eye is difficult at the age of sixty-five. Youth and early middle age are the periods when one should undertake these experiments. Circumstances, however, often change one’s scheme of life.

When Madam X suddenly lost her indulgent husband, she found it necessary to revamp her programme of living. At the time when motor cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, she had experienced the thrill of owning one of the first automobiles. Each year a newer and more up-to-date car was to be found in her garage. And in later years two, and even three, new models were on hand at all times.

The experienced chauffeur Gus, who joined the domestic staff when the first car was purchased, became a permanent and loyal retainer. He was a giant-like Swede whose knowledge and skill in mechanics were supplemented by a kindly interest in the family. He had the faculty of being useful in many ways, and he became a selfappointed mentor to the children.

The country home of this family was some twenty-five miles from the large city where they lived during the winter, and it was in this remote place that Gus was called upon to exert his talents. He cut the children’s hair, pulled their little teeth, and at times manicured some of the twenty-seven coal-oil lamps in use in that large old house.

His fast but skillful driving brought the town house and the country place much closer together. In a word, the faithful Gus made motoring a pleasant and unruffled experience for Madam X and her large family. Twenty years with Gus at the wheel obviated the possibility of Madam X ever showing any ambition to drive a car. Her youngest son, on various occasions, had ventured the erroneous opinion that she could never learn to drive, owing to the fact that such an achievement called for unusual coördination of the head, feet, and hands. This questionable pleasantry always occasioned a laugh in the family circle, as there was neither desire nor need, on the part of Madam X, to put the matter to the test.

When, however, the passing of the head of the family brought to a close this life of ease and luxury, it meant doing without a car, and this seemed an unthinkable deprivation.

If the period of life’s lengthening shadows does not lend itself to the easy acquisition of new accomplishments, neither does it make palatable the thought of accustoming one’s self to vital economies, one of them being the use of street cars. Nor can taxicab travel be enjoyed when one’s eye is on the meter and one’s mind is focused on the expense budget.

At the time Madam X sold her ears at a staggeringly low price, the scant residue was husbanded with the thought of future needs. Some kind friend suggested that she might drive a car if she were a younger woman, but at sixty-five this was not to be thought of. Other and similar observations, supplied from time to time, set up a slow and certain ferment in the pride of this determined woman. Before she realized it, she found herself mentally holding a steering wheel and guiding an imaginary motor through traffic. The younger son was consulted. He reversed his position as to his mother’s ability to learn, and now encouraged her to try. He built up her morale and helped her to frame in figures the financial angles that had to be considered in view of the small budget at her disposal.

Another son stepped in with concrete support by swelling the inadequate sum derived from the sale of the cars.

The salesman who brought the new car to the house indulged in many blandishments to encourage a white-haired pupil, saying he felt sure that her long experience in driving spirited horses would enable her to gauge distances. One lesson from this man convinced Madam X that she had undertaken the impossible, and she longed to give up the attempt. But a certain pride came to her rescue, fortified by her teacher’s encouraging assurance that if she persevered she would be a pioneer in the field of achievement for elderly women. Madam X resolved to conquer an oncoming weakness which beset her in moments of relaxation, when she pictured the possible disasters that her less heroic friends had predicted.

The first week her former chauffeur drove with her. His great respect for her prompted him to withhold the necessary criticisms and corrections, which was a handicap. It is better to be treated rough and have the agony over and done with. There were times when Madam X had an impulse to throw her feet and hands out the window simultaneously. There were occasions when her foot should have been on the brake instead of the gas, and an awful moment when a reckless driver seemed to be rushing at her.

After the first ten days she drove alone in a private place where there was little traffic. She learned to back, and the frequent rounding of corners taught her the value of the brake. The third week found Madam X driving in traffic, using a steady hand in steering, always following the lights, feeling safe in the thought that other motorists must observe the same signals. The Fire Department had nothing on her. She gave ample warning to hesitating motorists who haltingly threaded their way through traffic. She knew that tooting the horn signified faulty ethics of the road, but she was determined to avoid the first accident; and, moreover, these ethics meant nothing to her in her firm determination to learn to drive, and drive well.

One night a speeding motorist nosed into her path. She, feeling she had as much right to the road as he, refused to turn out. Finally, in an impatient rage, he jerked his car to one side, shouting as he passed, ‘ Why don’t you learn to drive that buggy?’ This was the nearest approach to an insult that came her way during those agitating days.

She now drives in the rain, in the dark, on country roads, and often tours considerable distances. She finds courage in the thought that ‘what one woman can do, another can do also.’ She adopted this as her slogan and applied it to many activities, thus opening avenues to many occupations, all of which helped her to place her newly adjusted life in a new frame.

In making known her experiences, she hopes they may stimulate other women on the shady side of fifty to learn to drive a car. It is better to follow this constructive line than to ride a useless hobby that usually has room in the saddle for only one.

This excursion into the activities of the more youthful circle of life will give pleasure to numerous friends, and it may save many from that monotonous and uncomfortable seat on the shelf where women past sixty often find themselves ensconced. No woman who drives a car need be a victim of loneliness.