Why Women Should Not Drive

My grandmother was a firm believer that women should not be allowed to vote or drive.  When she passed away at the age of 81, she had never voted once in any election: federal, state, local, or even in her church.  She would often make note of the fact that she believed only men should be allowed to vote; they were the only ones who had the knowledge and fortitude to be able to make such important decisions.  She also believed that only those of the opposite sex had the skills, abilities and knowledge necessary to operate a motorized vehicle.  In her lifetime, she only drove a car one time, and that is the focus of our story.  

My grandmother, her parents, and their other innumerable progeny running around all lived together in a tiny shack at the bottom of a hill.  At the top of this hill sat another somewhat larger and nicer shack; but a hovel nonetheless.  Whether or not this home included any other children or not is not within the scope of my knowledge, being that all this took place a half century before I made my presence known on this old earth.

My grandmother only went through the third grade, and it is doubtful any of the other members of the fairer sex went much further than that.  Girls were only sent to school long enough to get the basic instructions in reading, writing and the basic math skills they might need in their future occupations as wife and mother.  After that they would spend their time learning the more important skills they would need in their future jobs: cooking, cleaning and taking care of children.  Thus, without the need to spend the next few years learning tasks in school that she would never have a need for (and as one of the younger offspring there was very little need to spend time watching after her younger fellow broodlings), my grandmother had some time to kill in her childhood.  This usually meant getting into mischief in one way or another.

Then came that fateful day when everything apexed into the perfect opportunity for her dream to be fulfilled.  Her little brother and sister had been put down for a nap, her mother had taken to the rocking chair in the corner of the living room, and little Betty (my dear grandmother) had completed all her assigned tasks.  My great grandfather was out working in the fields, and all my mother’s future aunts and uncles were either working or playing out of sight of the house.  Betty decided that it was the perfect time to ascend the hill so she could get a closer look at the object of her dreams.

It is only reasonable to believe that that trek up the slope was the slowest and most agonizing journey of her life.  Undoubtedly she had been told on more than one occasion to stay clear of that “horrible contraption”.  Very likely she had been reprimanded for wandering too far up the hill as she was playing outdoors with her sisters.  So as she slowly crept up the embankment, she would have been cautious enough to cast a weary glance at the house to make sure her mother had not exited her chair and made her way to the front door where just the sight of her approaching the verboten object would have resulted in shocked and outraged shouting that would have ended with several strokes of the strap. 

It is unlikely she was able to start the car.  If we assume it was a 1930 model, it would have taken several steps to get it started: first you must turn the key in the ignition, secondly the potential driver would be required to flip on the fuel switch, next the gear shift would have to be put into neutral while making sure the parking brake was set, then you would have to pull out the choke (but only slightly), after that the electric starter would have to be engaged by depressing the button on the floor, and finally the choke would have to be released and the throttle adjusted and the fuel switch would have to be turned off.  Due to lack of knowledge, skills, and length of limb, we can put to rest any notion that 10 year old Betty would have been able to start that wonderful machine.

Although not as complicated, disengaging the parking break on a Model A would have been too complicated for a child to accomplish.  After pulling up slightly on the brake, it would then be necessary to push the button on the top of the brake and then slowly lower the handle until the brake was in the off position.  It only seems natural that the emergency brake had not been set, and that my grandmother had accidentally knocked the car out of gear, allowing the car to roll forward.  And since the car was parked facing my great-grandparents house with the front wheels sitting just at the edge of the slope, that was where the car headed once it was no longer hindered by the emergency brake.