to Ludvika and do write-ups and drive-on an overcast Tuesday morning in April.
In need of a cig
In the sports hall in Ludvika we conducted the theory test. There was a conference room in the basement where I would be tested together with a dozen other driving license aspirants. My habit from different tests in high school, I submitted answers first of all to go out and smoke and were thereby informed that I would have to wait to the last with the driving test. It was a long and nervous wait.
Furniture kickers
45 minutes later I learned that I had passed the theory and the driving test began. After half an hour, the first and then the one after the other came back to the sport hall’s cafeteria. Stockholm cursed hot. One kicked the furniture around but most laughed out loud and you knew who toothed driving test and which ones
fared. I sat quietly, drank coffee and smoked.
One gallon of coffee
After two packets John Silver and one gallon of coffee it was my turn to sit behind the wheel. When I closed the car door for me appeared a peace I had never felt before. The nervousness was blown away and I steered away the Jetta a couple mil along the national road towards Borlänge before I turned and took a turn through the center of Ludvika.
Slow cruise in town
The entire time I sat and glanced at the surveyor’s writing table where my driver’s license sat jammed. When we stepped out of the car after stopping driving test said the man who sat next:
– You drive good. A bit too fast on the highway and a little too slowly in town, but you’re running good. Continue like this.
Drove that Chevy for 48 hours
After an uninteresting train ride back to Lindesberg, Jokke, a friend waited at the train station with an angry yellow ’66 Chevy II station wagon.
- Here, take the car. I know how eager you are to drive when you have a license, he said.
And drove I sure did. I was not out of the car in two days other than to refuel and eat.
No Amazon
Eleven months later, I had worked and saved up so much that I could get my first car and as I said, it would not be a Volvo Amazon.
To be continued...