LEARNING TO DRIVE

I learned to drive on the freeways of southern California in the late 1960s, when the speed limit was 70 mph and everyone ignored it, in a 1948 Chrysler with fluid drive, with neither power steering nor power brakes, that was happiest at 50 mph. I also commuted 25 miles one-way daily, for eighteen insane months, and as you can see, survived, but barely.

When I moved to southern California, in January, 1967, it was to accompany my newly acquired husband, who had just received a postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech in gas phase reaction kinetics. Caltech was THE Place to be scientifically in the late 1960s, but Bill threatened to turn down the fellowship unless I married him immediately and transferred out there to finish my degree, so I enrolled at UCLA for the quarter beginning March 1967. The major problem being that UCLA was in Westwood, 25 miles due west of Pasadena, which was in the foothills of the Angeles Crest mountains. I would have to commute.

Fortunately or unfortunately, many Caltech graduate and postgraduate students had wives in the same predicament. The husband would be accepted at Caltech; the wife, equally bright but a nonscientist, would be accepted at the next most challenging college in the area, UCLA. A lot of carpooling resulted.

My first quarter at UCLA I commuted in a green Dodge Dart belonging to Priscilla Randall Sramek, an art history grad student from Rhode Island married to an astrophysics grad. Mary Dakin, a premed from Mendocino County engaged to a Hindu biology major from Delhi, rode with us. That quarter was fairly uneventful until the day Priscilla decided we should contribute to the UCLA Student Blood Drive. We all went in to donate, but I was rejected for anemia, which was fortunate, because I was able to grab the wheel when Priscilla fainted in the fast lane of the Santa Monica freeway going home to Pasadena.

Second quarter I commuted with Mary Dakin, who had purchased a blue VW bug with a luggage rack around which she entwined orange plastic morning glories in order to find it in the parking lot. Mary was a news junkie, and as the UCLA parking structure would cut off radio transmissions as we entered, she often would forget to turn off the car radio along with the car. As the VW was designed to let the radio play when the car was off, we had a lot of jump starts that quarter. No accidents, tho, until the day we were caught in a traffic jam at the Stack, where four freeways empty into one another. Mary, tired of keeping her foot on the brake, set the emergency. When traffic started to move, she was slow in releasing it, and we were rear-ended--fortunately by another VW. UCLA Med Center treated my whiplash at no charge.

Third quarter I commuted with Gail Bremenstall Barcelo, a chemistry major from New Orleans (Newcombe), who was married to an aerospace engineering grad student (Tulane). Gail drove a sturdy little blue Plymouth, which was fortunate, as being from the South Gail would never be go rude as not to look at you when she talked, and she also used her hands in conversation. When she hit the pedestrian in the crosswalk, however, it was dark, and poorly marked, and the woman did step right in front of the car. It really was unnerving when she landed on the hood... but when we drove her to the UCLA Med Center, she was only bruised and shaken.

Fourth quarter I commuted with Susan Ziska Bloom, a sociology major married to a Caltech undergraduate. Caltech grad students were bright, but the undergrads were just plain scary! They were also penniless, so Susan drove a black MG with the doors tied on with rope. That was fine until the passenger door fell off on the San Diego Freeway. At that point I decided. I had to take my fate into my own hands. I HAD to get my license.

I persuaded Bill to teach me, and we started taking the Chrysler into empty parking lots on Sunday afternoons, and up into the Angeles Crest to practice. The day the brakes failed and we had to coast down using the emergency brake was exciting, but no more so than the day I received my license.

Fifth quarter I drove myself--and Susan Ziska Bloom. It really was uneventful, until the Saturday we went to take the California State Social Workers Exam. (The State of California, in its infinite wisdom, had decided a degree in History qualified you to be a social worker, and since I couldn't think of anything else to do with my degree at the time, I went along with Sue.) Unfortunately, as we entered the on-ramp for the Hollywood Freeway, a speeding truck cut us off, sending one wheel of the Chrysler over the concrete buttress. Fortunately, a 1948 Chrysler was quite sturdy, so we were uninjured, and the tow truck recovered the car in one piece. That was my final accident in southern California, as I graduated at the end of that quarter, and moved to New York City. But that's another story. This is the one about how I survived driving--and learning to drive--in southern California.