Which Way?

I keep remembering two events from way back in my past--both from High School years. They keep bumping up in my consciousness like a chipped tooth that you can't stop touching with your tongue.

One was being a member of the Seneca HS Tennis Team. I joined in the first year that there was a girls' tennis team (Thank you, Ms. Richardson). Since there were no established players, anyone could join--experience or no. I liked practicing after school, bouncing the ball off the wall of the building and whatever else we did. I only remember playing once in a match. It was at Seneca park, and it went on forever. In tennis, you have to win by two points. I kept getting ahead by one point, but not two. The other player would catch up. Then I'd get ahead by one. This must have gone on for a long time. I remember Ms. Richardson saying something like, "Come on, get this over with. Win or don't win, we need to go home. Everyone else has been finished for a long time." I don't remember who won the match.

Is that what I'm doing with the landings? If so, then the solution would be to get a move on. "S__t or get off the pot," as Mima would say.

The other event I remember is learning to drive. The plan was to learn on the VW Bug, so I'd know how to drive a stick shift. I remember practicing on the long driveway to Girl Scout Camp (now Hebron Ln.) with Mom in the RH seat. I couldn't get that car into gear without killing the engine no matter what. I killed it, and killed it, and killed it, over and over and over again. I can hear Mom saying in frustration, "Listen to the motor. Can't you hear it? You're the musician!" But I couldn't, and we finally gave up. I took my test in the big automatic '53 Buick. Later, everything changed. I didn't practice on the Bug anymore, BUT somebody took our family, all of us kids, to a movie, "Herbie the Love Bug"--antics of a Disneyfied Volkswagen. (I don't think we went to movies very much,if ever, so it was a big deal.) Shortly thereafter, I sat in the right-hand seat of a VW on a long trip to the Appalachian trail. Our CIT counselor, Sparky, was driving, and I thought she hung the moon. I soaked up everything she said and did, including hot-dogging that little car.

When I got home from the trip, I got in Dad's VW and drove it. Just like that.

If this is the key image, then I may as well just get on with everything else and assume that when it's time, it will happen.

???????????!!