I was a driving instructor in Phoenix years ago. I mentioned this before in a story about two sisters I taught to drive. And I think I mentioned that the folks who come to a driving school to have their kids, moms, other relatives taught to drive are mostly the ones who wound up with their cars in the canal when THEY tried to teach the kids, moms, other relatives. We got the peaches. Teen were not so bad most of the time, they learn quickly and are highly motivated...we still had drive-in movies in them days!
But near to us in distance and in our hearts was the community in Northwest Phoenix area built by Del Webb...Sun City. The retirement community with everything. Near to our hearts because we got a lot of students from Sun City. Funny, some folks live their lives in a city, ride buses and subways and taxis, then retire to a place like Sun City and suddenly they buy a Cadillac and want to learn to drive.
Such a fellow was Sam. Sam grew up in Chicago, lived his whole life in the same building, worked in his father's (then later his) tabacco store, rarely left the block he lived on, shopped in little mom and pop places for everything he needed. A trip to the stadium for a ball game or to see the Bears only happened a few times in his life, riding the El and buses. He never even rode a bicycle...in his whole life. He reached age 70, retired, sold the building (shop and all), and moved to Sun City. Bought a nice house. Bought new lightweight cloths. Bought a huge Coupe de Ville. Called us up and wanted to start driving.
I can still remember the first lesson spiel. In a large, empty parking lot, we set out some cones and talked about blind areas and how to look around yourself, and how to aim at a target over the horizon and how to steer the car and return the wheel to the straight ahead position as the turn completes itself. The first hour is simple. Stop. Go. Turn left. Turn right. Drive straight between the cones. 99 and 99/100s students are bored with it all by the end of the first lesson. I had Sam in the parking lot for three lessons when I expressed serious doubt that he would ever be able to do this. He had no mechanical experience in his life at all. It took him four or five time getting his fingers caught in the door before he learned to use the handle and not the top of the door to close it. Trying to steer was jerky and he always knocked his hat off or dropped his ever-present cigar or both. Stops were hard and sudden. Starts were like a drag race. The parking lot was full of skid marks. He couldn't get the idea of turning the wheel back to line up after a turn, or just turning the wheel a little to move a little. Sam looked cheerful. He was taking the news quite well...I thought. Then he told me that he had the money to pay for the lessons and HE felt that he was starting to get the hang of it and he pleaded with me to stick with him for a while. I was feeling guilty. $15.90 1972 dollars per hour was a lot of investment in what I felt was a losing proposition. I agreed to stick with him for a little more and we would re-evaluate his progress.
The re-evaluation was easy, there was no progress to speak of. But he insisted that he was feeling better every time and he knew he was gonna get the hang of this driving stuff. Hell, a kid like me could do it, so he should be able to, too. This went on for far too long. I shared my concerns with my Master Teacher (who hit the roof when I told him I had tried to talk Sam out of spending his money). MT suggested I take Sam out on the road, get out of the parking lot and see if he didn't do better in a more real environment. I should tell you that our cars were equipped with dual controls so the instructor could take over at a second's notice if things got ugly. It didn't take seconds...on the first turn out of the parking lot, Sam turned short into the curb and corrected by steering hard into the oncoming lane, leaving the wheel hard against the lock. He fought me for control of the car and didn't seem to understand why we had to go back to the parking lot.
That was my last lesson with Sam. I had another meeting with the MT and he and the owner decided that the Senior Master Teacher would take over and work some magic on old Sam. I don't know how long he kept working on Sam but I do know that Sam never got a license and never got a refund, either. He did get the best I had to offer and it wasn't good enough. Several months later, I had become the Master Teacher and was the recepient of all the very special of the special students. But with all the difficult students...with all the challenges and attitudes and ineptitudes...I never saw a person who was SOOOOO unsuited to driving. I always wondered what happened to his new Cadillac, though.