Designated Coach

Jensen is in driver training. She does just fine. In fact, it is less stressful driving with her than it is (or at least, was) with Ailsa. While at the Colorado River at the beginning of the month, I tried again to teach Ailsa how to drive a manual transmission. We were off road and I put the car into 4wheel drive low. It's almost impossible to stall the engine in those low gears. Still, it was very frustrating and after about 5 minutes I gave up. I think Ailsa's husband will have more patience than I do. Or, maybe he will just be smarter and not try to teach her this unique and almost obsolete skill.

Anyway, back to Jensen. We should make it a family rule that we never all go with her when she is driving. We try to have just one person telling her what to do and keep from killing us all. I usually hold that designation. However, we Lillywhites are such know-it-alls that it is impossible for us (meaning Ailsa and Lenore) to allow me (the Father, the most skilled in all things mechanical and involving dexterity, hand/eye coordination and the only one capable of the computation of advanced trigonomical formulations in mere nano-seconds) the latitude to instruct and guide our poor fledgling driver, Jensen, safely and happily into the leagues of functioning drivers.

Invariably, we will all pipe in at the same time with some toughtful comment or evaluation of an obstacle/passage/ episode/family near death experience from which we just barely escaped while benefiting from Jensen's superior chauffeuring skills. We often end up shushing eachother and evaluating eachother's driver training prowess. The noise level will escalate until we drive Laney crazy. Next time we will bring duct tape to cover our mouths and let Laney be the driver trainer.

It's not unlike the depiction of the Judean People's Front and all its splinter groups in the Monty Python movie Life of Brian. "We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!"

Actually, at this point Jensen's driving skill isn't any different than 95% of the drivers on Utah roads. Unfortunately, that isn't saying an awful lot.