One of my grandsons recently turned 16 and passed his driving test. He is thrilled to be able to legally drive a car, just like his brother and cousins before him.
But this milestone seems more common these days than it did many years ago, when I got my driver’s license in the mid-20th century. For many teenage boys my age, being able to drive was a big deal in life.
Back then, you could get your license and take the driving test at the age of 15, and most of us took it right away. The reason for this was that we were so-called “car crazy” people. Many of today’s teens, including my descendants, are happy to have crossed this milestone, and although they occasionally talk about Lamborghinis, I don’t think they’re crazy about cars.
For me and some of my friends, passing the driving test was considered, then and forevermore, to be the most important accomplishment of our lives. Amen. It was everything we wanted to achieve in life. Crazy? of course. Car crazy.
At the time, Test’s headquarters were at the National Guard Armory on London Street, and years later Bob Dylan saw Buddy Holly perform there. You can’t talk about armory without mentioning that. Never mind that world-famous composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff also once performed here.
A Minnesota Highway Patrol trooper known as Officer Blinn (not his exact name, but it’s close) tested it in a scary roped-off parallel parking on Jefferson Street along the North Face of the Armory. .
A close friend of mine, who is a few months older than me, passed the test before me with an almost perfect score, a perfect 98 out of 100. Phew, when my turn came a few months later, I fainted. Although I couldn’t achieve it, I was OK with 87 points. 70 points was a passing grade.
Why do I remember this so vividly, decades later? Because it was so important to most boys of my generation. It opened the door to the possibility of getting your own car and “customizing” it into something resembling a “hot rod.”
Customization involves modifying the exterior of a vehicle, such as removing the hood ornament, trunk handle, etc., filling the remaining holes with lead, and repainting. Lowering the rear end was also an absolute requirement.
Perhaps the most significant change (other than the giant fuzzy dice hanging from inside the rearview mirror) is the addition of a Smitty steel-pack muffler that roars loudly through the chrome Echo cans in the tailpipe when you rev the engine. I installed a dual exhaust. These were called “twin pipes”. (Later, after I got my own car, I was pulled over and ticketed by a Duluth police officer for having twin pipes and a loud muffler.)
Mechanically-minded kids “enhanced” engines so they could win drag racing competitions at downtown traffic lights.
But back to the state driving test at the Duluth Armory. About a week after passing the exam, I almost had my license revoked.
On the day of the citywide high school music festival held at the Armory, I was allowed to drive to school in my family’s car and attended with other Denfeld children. During the lunch break of the festival, a friend lined up three girls from another high school to join us for a midday fun drive in his family’s car. fun.
With the girls in the back seat and a friend riding shotgun, I “jumped” out of the London Street parking lot and began blasting around the neighborhood in second gear.
“Scratch” means when you shift a manual transmission from low to second gear, you disengage the clutch, causing the engine to “whirr” and the tires to squeal. Peeling was also called “burning rubber.”
Almost every 15-year-old driver tried it, but my dad’s car always responded well, even if he didn’t. Ford V-8.
Anyway, after a few minutes of wandering around the Armory neighborhood, we headed back outside the festival, where I came to a screeching halt and a uniformed law officer waved at me. Hey, it’s Officer Brin who passed me on my road test just a week ago.
He strode up to my side window and said something harsh like, “If you drive like that any more, I’ll take away your license.”
I was mortified, the passenger in the car winced, and I never drove that road again until I got my next family car a few days later. There was something about having a second skin peeling and scratching that I couldn’t resist when I was 15 years old.
But don’t tell your grandchildren.
Jim Heffernan is a former news and opinion writer and columnist for the Duluth News Tribune. He maintains a blog at jimheffernan.org and can be reached by email at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org.
