18.2.11

Driver's Ed Bakula Driving School

Ed Bakula was a champion runner, an Olympian in track and field.  Courageous, Ed managed to outrun bullets in his native Poland to escape Russian occupiers.  He ran all the way to the U.S.A. just to sit in the passenger seat next to me.  I'm learning how to drive.  Well, I know how to drive.  I want the tax break and the insurance break (that is, my parents do).  I'm riding around town with good looking girls (Robin and Delores) from my school.  Me, Ed and this big guy named Maurice. Maurice is a year ahead of me.  Driver's Ed arrives about two minutes late at the back entrance of St. Pius X High School.  We have been waiting about fifteen minutes.

Ed or Mr. Bakula, as he asks us to call him, owns and operates Drivers Ed Bakula Driving School.  Mr. Bakula is short and wiry with receding hair on either side of his widow's peak.  Probably in his 50's, well groomed, he has a furrowed forehead and an aristocratic manor.  Mr. Bakula wears jump suits that cause him to  look like a professional race car driver - confident with a strong European accent.

Always looking out for us with advice about car maintenance and performance, Ed quizzes us as we wiz down the Interstate.  "Now students, how do you stop a car when the brakes are completely broken?"  No one offers an answer.  "Well, you drive off the rode into a field and run over small trees until the car slows to a stop.  (No big trees, they might kill you.)  Ed continues, "How much space do we give the car in front of us?" (None, I don't want anybody to cut in front of me.)  "One car length per 10 miles per hour" I say.  Mr. Bakula smiles wryly and asks, "Now next question.  When are my students going to pay the rest of their Drivers Ed fee?"  We all laugh.  I whisper with teeth clinched and a silly smirk, "When Dad feels like it."

The words Mr Bakula uses most in the car is, "slowly down!"  In American it would translate to, "slow down!"  Not that any of us are reckless.  If we drive two miles over the speed limit, we get a friendly "slowly down" and a smile.  Anyone accelerating five or ten miles over the speed limit hears tires squeal on the pavement.  The car might slide side-ways while it drags to a halt.  Mr. Bakula just hit the break pedal on the floor in front of his side of the seat.  "Don't do that!" says Mr. Bakula (he frowns).  Yeah, he still has the speed - fast feet on the pedal.  Good reaction.

Today we're entering the expressway for the first time.  We pull over in the Walmart parking lot along the frontage rode.  "Before we start, does any one need to visit the restroom," inquires Ed.  "They  have pooblic ( said "public" in American) restrooms in Walmart.


Now that everyone is back from the relief of the Walmart bathroom we begin the verbal part of the days lesson.  Mr. Bakula explains how "important" it is to keep with the flow of traffic on the interstate and not to turn into faster moving lanes until we build up enough speed.  "You will all do fine," says Mr. Bakula.  I think Maurice was day-dreaming when we received this lecture.

Maurice was the first one in the driver's seat to attempt the on-ramp and the merge into flowing traffic of the interstate highway.  From the traffic signal at the entrance to Walmart, Maurice jams the accelerator down to the floor and swerves into the on-ramp.  The acceleration pushes the rest of us deeper into our seats.  This aggressive move caught Mr. Bakula off guard.  Maurice is already on the freeway blasting into adjoining lanes, moving left and right, weaving in and out of traffic and gaining speed.

Driver's Ed Bakula erupts, "STOP IT, STOP IT!"  His fist is pounding on Maurice's right bicep.  "PULL OVER, YOU SILLY BOY!"  Maurice, frowning at our Polish Olympian, decides not to defend himself from the barrage of punches and "SILLY BOY's."  The car rolls to a stop and is purring on the side of the rode.  Mr. Bakula is seething and Maurice is rubbing his right bicep.  I'm just trying to keep from bursting into laughter.  Robin and Delores on either side of me in the back seat were straightening their sweaters and smoothing back their hair.  Their breasts had been bouncing on me and away from me as Maurice weaved in and out of traffic.  When Mr. Bakula hit the breaks and Maurice swerved onto the shoulder to stop, Robin touched me in an "excitable" and "unfamiliar" place as she attempted to steady herself during the stop.  "Sorry, Sammy," she said to me.  Way to go, Maurice.

Today's driving lesson was ended early by Maurice's reckless surge into the expressway.  Mr. Bakula pulled his cell phone out and called Maurice's parents.  Besides informing them of his infraction on the freeway, they were told to pick up their miscreant son.  We waited on the side of the freeway until they arrived.  Minus Maurice, Mr. Bakula drove us back to school.  We would attempt the on-ramp and expressway another day.  


We never saw Maurice again.  I wonder if Mr Bakula was really a Polish immigrant or was he a spy, connected to the KGB.  If they came to Maurice's house in the early morning darkness, did they take him to Siberia?  Maybe Drivers Ed will be easier there for him.

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