So far, on this Blog, I have portrayed myself as, “trustworthy”, “loyal”, “friendly”, “helpful, "sensitive", "heroic", "dedicated", "God fearing", etc. (you can tell that I used to be a Boy Scout!), but those of you who really know me, know I must continually deal with the issue of being too "L I T E R A L"!
Growing up, I never thought of myself as being “literal or anal", but simply "precise". I prided myself on listening to, and complying with, every word. When a sign on the Freeway says to, "Take The Next Exit", I don't know if it means that I should take "This Exit" or the "The Exit that Follows This One" (if you are fellow "anal-ites", you understand. If you don't, contact me and I will explain the difference!).
Anyway, when I turned 50, I had decided to start doing the things that I had always wanted to do. I felt that I had given the first half of my life, 50 years (in my family, reaching near 100 is not a big deal), to do what everyone else wanted me to do. Get an education, be successful, take care of others, etc., but now the second 50 years was MINE. Not that I was going to change my life dramatically, but I felt that if I didn't do certain things pretty soon, I would never have a chance to do them!
One of these "dreams" was to drive a tour bus on Catalina Island. Don't ask me why, but I thought that transporting people and educating them about Catalina history and entertaining them was one of the "neatest" things that I could do. I also love to drive, which has a tendency to help calm me down and think more clearly, so this would be my "perfect" job. I would drive a bus for, "Discovery Tours", part of the "Santa Catalina Island Company".
Because of the nature of our tour buses for "Discovery Tours", (which were once owned by the Wrigley Family), i.e., size and capacity (some carry over 20 passengers), air brakes, etc., I needed to have a Class “A” California Driver’s License. In order to obtain the certified Class A license, to drive these "rigs", the DMV expected me to take, and pass, six, yes, count them, "6", tests. The problem for me was that all of the tests must be taken one after the other, on the same day, under the supervision of the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). If I failed to pass even one of these tests, I would then have to wait a couple of days, to a week, and come back and do a completely different set of six tests.
Since I had never driven a large commercial vehicle before, I wasn’t familiar with the highly specialized nomenclature of the trade. For instance, I didn't know what "glad hands" were (I thought it referred to the hand that received money as "tips"), nor did I recognize a "fifth wheel" (I thought it was referring to the spare tire), and so on and so on, etc. Sometimes I tried to use "common sense" but that just got me into more trouble (I don't know if you noticed lately, but "common sense" is no longer "common", now, its the exception!). I studied and studied, and studied again, but invariably I would flunk at least one of these six tests. And then I would have to come back in two weeks and take a whole set of six over again. Again, and again and again! Week in and week out I would enter one of the DMV offices around Southern California, with my shoulders back, my head held high and leave and leave, on my knees, by the back door (pathos added for dramatic effect).
Let me give you an example of how useless common sense can be. One of the questions that I will never forget was: "If my tractor/trailer rig, hauling a bus (they actually haul a trailer full of passengers up and down the steep winding switch-back roads and up over the Summit to the interior) went off a cliff, statics have shown that what percentage of my passengers would perish?" By virtue of common sense, I guessed 100% (have you seen these cliffs?) and when the test came back that answer was…"Wrong". The correct answer was "75%" (I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!). This answer was the killer for another set of six tests, so…
I went up the DMV examiner with the idea of throwing myself on her mercy. I laid my most persuasive and passionate plea on her, and explained that on the cliffs and hills of Catalina, if my bus went over one of them, EVERYONE WOULD DIE! NO ONE WOULD SURVIVE, MAYBE THE VEHICLE WOULD BE UNRECOVERABLE (do busses have “black boxes”?). Unfortunately, statics are statics, she was a State employee (they are not like normal humans) and she was unmoved by my defense. I then asked her if she could please replace this "highly theoretical" question with another "factual" one, but she refused.
BACK TO THE ISLAND AND BACK TO THE PERVERBIAL "DRAWING BOARD".
After taking five sets of tests (30 individual tests), I was panicked. There was only one more set of six that I could take and then I was be unable to take any more tests, thus, "No passy, no drivey"! I asked a good friend of mine, who had been driving for years, how to study for these tests and I was told that the only way to pass the tests would be to memorize them! Fortunately, copies of ALL of the answers to all thirty-six tests were available. I decided to get them and simply memorize them, which I DID! I actually have friends whose lives were scarred by sitting with me and asking me “flash card” questions, which I made from cut up test answers, for hours on end.
When my last waiting period was over, I went back to the Fullerton DMV office, ended up going to the same examiner that I had seen the last five times, and asked for my final set of six. You have never seen a more non-supportive look in your life! I ran and hid in my little "cubby hole", that I had made for myself in the examination room, partially curled up into the semi-fetal position, and set out to "PASS".
When I finished, I, groveling like Quasimodo, took the tests to "Ms Sunshine" and handed her the finished documents, as Oliver when he pleaded, "Please Sir, I want some more!" In my case, "Please Mam, I want to pass!" She grabbed the papers from me and began to grade them. I made some mistakes on each one, but not enough to fail me, SO, I PASSED! I PASSED! I…PAAASSSSSED!
She looked at me, scornfully, as if to say "Where is your 'seed pod'? YOU CAN'T BE CHUCK LIDDELL!" However, she said the mandatory, monotone, "congratulations", told me that I would now have to have my picture taken, but I would need to make an appointment for that, and sent me on my way.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong now, I…PAAASSSSSED! (to be continued in my next post)
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