If You Didn’t Learn to Drive in a Minivan, You Did it Wrong

My affair with the 1995 Ford Aerostar, was brief and noncommittal.

The only previous engagement I had with the beast up until that point was stealing smashed-down cigarette butts from the overflowing ashtray upon its enormous, seemingly space station-like dashboard.

It is a credit to my dad that he agreed to take me driving on that January day. I had just turned thirteen years old, and despite not legally being able to take my learner’s test for another year, I wanted to be ready.

That meant driving down loose gravel back roads with five-foot-tall snowbanks on either side of the van.

We were moving forward in a way that was barely moving at all.

Too paralyzed with fear and the gnawing angst that I would fuck it all up somehow, I was hesitant to put the pedal to the metal. Instead, I decided that a safe speed of 5 km per hour would suit our purposes just fine. The January sun shone down overhead as the blue skies rapidly began changing to grey.

It’s not that I hadn’t explored our Central Albertan back roads before. We did, after all, live on an acreage. We as a family had participated in many a late-night drive home after Mom and Dad had too many drinks and probably shouldn’t have been driving in the first place. This, conceivably, is why Dad was so eager to have me learn this ancient art of driving — to procure a built-in designated driver.

I quickly realized that being in the backseat and being at the wheel were two very different things.

When you are operating a vehicle, especially such an incredibly non-aerodynamic (was the name supposed to be ironic or something?) machine such as the Aerostar, one forgets what it’s like to be in the passenger’s seat. The van’s boxy frame and white and grey paint job mocked the very idea of becoming a self-sufficient licensed human being.

It was as though all time and space meant nothing, and the only thing that mattered was that gargantuan front shield window and the road beyond. You are now the driver. You are the controller of where to go.

Dad was chain-smoking in the passenger seat. He seemed on edge.

My ten-year-old brother was sitting in the backseat, seatbeltless because nobody asked him to strap in, and leaning forward, so his oversized cranium was situated between the two front bucket seats.

“Lindthy, GO FATHTER!” He lisped excitedly. I already knew that Dustin would be an excellent driver. He just had that thing inside of him. That, I will be an excellent driver, thing. Me, on the other hand, I was a palm-sweating mess.

“Yeah, Linds, you can probably speed up a little,” Dad said while taking another pull on his John Players Blue. “Just give it a little gas,” He calmly pointed out as if I didn’t know how to make a vehicle accelerate.

So then I floored it.

Somewhere in my brain, I thought that the brake was the gas, and the gas was something that will only make me go a little faster. Therefore if I pressed the gas down hard, I would appease my brother and my dad but still stay safe in the relative security of the speed at which I was travelling — 5kms per hour.

This is not at all what happened. I shot the van into forwarding motion. I was frozen with fear, so luckily, my hands stayed at the 10 and 2 positions and did not waiver.

We were still on the road — a good thing. I simultaneously saw the look of pure horror on Dad’s face while noting that the blue skies had transformed into a portentous grey shitstorm. Large wet snowflakes started to fall onto the windshield and were quickly sullying my view of the road. I couldn’t figure out how to activate the windshield wipers while keeping my hands at 10 and 2! Dustin was screaming with glee from the backseat.

“Take your foot off the gas!” Dad yelled as we flew over an icy hill.

Perhaps the greatest injustice was that Dad did not relent when I told him I’d prefer not to drive home once I had finally figured out how to slow down the van. He was breathing heavily as he lit another cigarette and said, “No, you can just turn around up in that next driveway, and we will head back to the house.”

Or maybe the wrong came when he momentarily considered allowing my ten-year-old brother to drive us home, thinking perhaps that was the safer choice. He had, after all, promised to teach a kid to drive that day, it didn’t matter which one it was. However, the overzealous gleam in Dustin’s eye put him off the idea pretty quickly.

We inched our way back home, me travelling my safe speed of 5kms per hour.

I wouldn’t try driving again for ten years. Ten years of bumming rides and backseat driving until the day I found out that I was pregnant and realized that I would need a means of transport for the infant child. My original idea of carting the babe around on a pack mule would not suffice.

Eventually, I received my license, but I still avoid the back roads of Central Alberta at all costs.