Story 28. A Driving Lesson
One night, my family was driving back from visiting my uncle in the middle of a very bad snowstorm.
The road was normally two lanes going in each direction, but there was so much snow that it was down to one lane.
We were scared, but we felt safe because my father used to work as a truck driver.
He's a very safe driver.
We were all alone on the highway until three cars pulled up right behind us.
They flashed their lights and beeped their horns, wanting to get by us.
But there was no place for us to pull over.
After a while, we stopped at a restaurant to wait for the snowstorm to calm down.
The three cars behind us pulled in, too.
They were full of teenagers.
They were talking about how slow we were driving.
One of them said loudly enough for us to hear, If you don't know how to drive, you shouldn't be on the highway.
Soon after, they left, even though the storm was getting worse.
My father decided that we should wait inside, hoping the storm would ease.
After it cleared a little, we headed down the road.
Eventually, we came around a bend, and we could not believe our eyes.
The three cars were all in the ditch.
Dad ran to the cars.
The kids were all okay, but they were freezing and very frightened.
A police officer arrived.
He took some of the kids to the next gas station.
We gave two of them a ride.
It was a very quiet drive.
My dad turned to the teenager driver and said with a little smile, You know, if you don't know how to drive, you should stay off the road.
The boy was very embarrassed.
My dad smiled and said, I was a truck driver for 15 years.
And we had a saying, There are old drivers and there are bold drivers.
But there aren't any old bold drivers.
The boy understood and hung his head in shame.
