Somewhere Between a Woman and Child
It is the summer of 1994. The summer Tom Hanks graced the screen as Forrest Gump.
I was 14, sun-kissed, and innocent. It was the summer of experimenting, laughter, summer school, long lazy afternoons, warm, lighthearted nights, best friends, and boys.
It was the summer my dad taught me how to drive.
It was the weekend. My dad drove us to an empty parking lot of a commercial office park, Bishop Ranch in San Ramon, CA.
The hot July sun beat down, ripening the smells of sizzling blacktop, freshly mowed lawn, charcoal, and smoky barbeque hamburgers. The air was dry, blistering, and thin. I felt cool, capable, excited, and nervous. My dad’s ability to stay calm and steady attracted my curiosity and kept my eyes on the road.
My dad had a two-door 93’ Chevy Camaro. It was cherry bomb red with a dark interior. The doors were long and wide, barely skimming the ground. The car was smooth in style like the man. It was fast, slick, and powerful, emulating sophistication.
The interior smelled of a stale blend of suspected day-old menthol cigarette smoke, cologne, and fragments of a new car - a bitter-sweet scent that will forever remind me of my nostalgia and him.
Coins, wrappers, rolls of half-consumed cool mint lifesavers, slim boxes of spearmint chiclet gum, and a tube or two of ChapStick (original or strawberry flavored) crowded the center console.
The soundtrack of Forrest Gump in the CD player played in the background. The voices and lyrics of the Mama’s and Papa’s and the Byrd’s, “To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn), and a time to every purpose, under heaven…” sailed through the speakers as harmonies, like a scent, filled the air. The words and choruses that would mark my memory and endless summer soul.
The season and car captured a mood of innocence, hot summer nights, independence, and chance—a symbol and sensation of freedom and new beginnings for my dad at 49 and me at 14.
It was the car that would come to my rescue when I needed to pass my driver’s license test. The car my dad would pick my friends and me up from summer school, awarding him a forever image of coolness. The car I would borrow and drive around town with my girlfriends through the neighborhoods of our latest crush, windows rolled down, and the cool breeze in our hair. The echo of the Eagles Tequila Sunrise and Hotel California or Brooks and Dunn humming in the backdrop.
That summer, my dad introduced the appreciation of oldies and classic rock. He showed me my first taste of freedom. Sitting in the front seat of his Chevy Camaro, my future was as wide as the windshield and beyond as my eyes could see. I was ready to sprout and speed with style into the potential and possibility of what lay ahead. My gaze in the rearview mirror while simultaneously keeping my eyes on the road ahead, unsure of where I came from and where I was headed, stuck somewhere between a woman and child.
Little did I know that learning to drive was one of many life lessons my dad would teach me.