HOUR 8<\/p>\n
DRIVER\u2019S LICENSE<\/p>\n
\u2018You have to drive in the USA!\u2019<\/p>\n
The mantra I heard,<\/p>\n
when I arrived,<\/p>\n
terrified me.<\/p>\n
It was wintertime,<\/p>\n
and two feet of snow in Rochester, NY.<\/p>\n
My husband taught me to drive,<\/p>\n
a manual transmission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s real driving,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
We fought furiously.<\/p>\n
Finally I walked home<\/p>\n
a mile in the dark.<\/p>\n
And called the driving school<\/p>\n
the next day.<\/p>\n
I failed once,<\/p>\n
and hid in my house,<\/p>\n
with curtains drawn.<\/p>\n
Then I passed, but was still afraid<\/p>\n
of the manual car we owned.<\/p>\n
Once on an icy slope<\/p>\n
with our two and three year olds<\/p>\n
strapped behind,<\/p>\n
trying not to slip and hit the car behind,<\/p>\n
I shot out into traffic across two lanes.<\/p>\n
Our guardian angels were employed<\/p>\n
And there were no cars on the road.<\/p>\n
I narrated the miracle with graphic details,<\/p>\n
to my husband.<\/p>\n
The next day he exchanged the manual<\/p>\n
for an automatic.<\/p>\n
Today I have driven many cars,<\/p>\n
even a RV.<\/p>\n
And yes, I did need to drive<\/p>\n
in the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HOUR 8 DRIVER\u2019S LICENSE \u2018You have to drive in the USA!\u2019 The mantra I heard, when I arrived, terrified me. It was wintertime, and two feet of snow in Rochester, NY. My husband taught me to drive, a manual transmission. \u201cThat\u2019s real driving,\u201d he insisted….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2873,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2873"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135557"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135575,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135557\/revisions\/135575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}