Illustration by Marley Allen-Ash
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In the fall of 1987, just before I turned 17, I took my first driving lesson in a burgundy 1982 Toyota Corolla. My instructor, a large, occasionally hotheaded Scottish man I called Dad, seemed surprised by my natural abilities behind the wheel.
But since Dad’s real job was a journalist, “surprised” meant skeptical.
He’d already made me wait a year to get my learner’s permit because he thought I lacked the maturity to safely operate a motor vehicle – presumably because a year earlier I’d attempted to take the Corolla on a midnight joyride.
Not wanting to wake Dad and Mom, the foolproof plan was to push the vehicle out of the carport, coast it backward down our steep alley, and start the engine at the end of the block.
Gravity took over as I struggled to steer from outside the car. I tried in vain to stop its momentum, but the front end swung around, struck me and catapulted me onto the blacktop – where I lay as it crashed through the white cinderblock wall marking our neighbours’ backyard.
Panic overwriting pain, I limped into the car, started it, reparked it in the carport and went to bed.
The next morning, it didn’t take the neighbourhood long to identify a suspect in the hit-and-run – my hasty retreat had left white-streaked evidence on Dad’s now-dented rear bumper.
My punishment? Apologize. Rebuild the brick wall. And no driving for a year.
“Why are you such a good driver?” he asked when it was finally time for a lesson.
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“Dunno,” I replied with a nervous chuckle.
The truth is, my already-licensed friends – most of whom were only marginally more mature than me – had been letting me test-drive their cars during my prohibition.
In the late 1980s, there were no license restrictions on how many non-family members a new driver could have in their vehicle in British Columbia. And you’d be surprised how many teenagers can cram into a 1968 VW Beetle – though how we all got out of it, and the ensuing 1990s, unscathed, I’ll never know.
Alas, my competence behind the wheel wasn’t good enough to steer clear of Dad’s recurrent road rage, some of which he directed at me. Once, he screamed at me for honking at a car that ran a stop sign right in front of us.
“You don’t do that,” he growled through gritted teeth – meaning, you haven’t earned the right to do that yet, little twerp.
“Why don’t you and mom buy a nicer car?” I once asked during a lesson.
“A car is for going from A to B. What else do you need?”
Of course, I’d later learn that Mom was the practical one. Dad had simply fallen in line.
What he really wanted was a Mercedes.
“One day,” he’d say, only half-joking. “When I retire.”
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The Merc never materialized. But retirement did – sooner than expected – due to illness brought on by the stress of managing a large newsroom. Fortunately, Dad got to drive off in a company-subsidized Toyota Camry, which compared to the Corolla might as well have been a German luxury sedan.
By 1990, before I’d even turned 20, I’d saved $15,000 working at that same newspaper. Dad suggested I put it toward a down payment on an apartment or townhouse (a realistic option in Vancouver back then).
Instead I bought a brand new, titanium-grey 1990 Ford Mustang 5.0 – which I sold at a substantial loss two years later.
What can I say? Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one with more fun.
Around 2010, my parents traded the relative comforts of the Camry for a used 2005 Corolla. And Dad drove that car – manually cranking the windows – until the day he died, on Feb. 13, 2022.
This past year, my 17-year-old son London has been taking driving lessons. His instructor? A large, occasionally hotheaded Canadian man he calls Dad, who’s happy to report that London is a solid driver, with all skills seemingly acquired above board. And the student-teacher dynamic has been mostly smooth, save for a few bumps – like the time he ran a red light out of sheer laziness.
Since my mom never drove, the old Corolla has been gathering dust in her carport for more than three years. So when London turned 17, she gifted him the car.
It didn’t take much to get it back on the road. That car – like my dad – was always reliable. And I know he would be chuffed that his grandson is using it to navigate the first stretch of his journey into adulthood.
A to B, indeed.
During the last four years of his life, Dad suffered from the aggravating symptoms of prostate cancer – and the compounding side effects of treatment. So when the diagnosis ultimately became terminal, he didn’t dillydally – he chose a medically assisted death. He was 86 years old.
We all watched him go. Right before he passed, he smiled and said, “Do you see that?” I don’t know what he saw, but I like to think it was his mom, dad, and predeceased siblings, waiting to take him to the other side.
I figure they went in a Mercedes.
Graeme McRanor lives in South Surrey, B.C.