I did learn to drive when I was five. No I did not learn everything there is to know. I learned the rules. I learned when to stop. How fast to go, and how to know that.

I learned who got to go first, and who had to wait. I learned how much to turn the wheel to stay where I was supposed to be on the road.

I learned this, and probably some other things about driving I cannot think of right now. And I did it sitting on my mothers lap while she used the accelerator and the brakes, and I used the steering wheel.

Yes, I know that is not safe. I don't know if car seats had even been invented then, and I am pretty sure that seatbelts were only in airplanes and race cars then.

It was 1955 in LA. That would be lower Alabama. We lived just north of Mobile Alabama. We lived on a river that ran into the gulf of Mexico.

And I always steered the panel van when my mother was in charge of it.

I remember that van, and can see it in my mind right now. It was a new one and it was black. And my father hated what my mother let me do. He said she was a terrible driver, and could not therefore teach me how to drive.

I guess he was right. Less than a year after they bought the van, my mother was in an accident driving it, and died as a result within five days.

That is another story.