Begin with one underage driver. Bossy’s daughter still has one more year until her permit. Add one car:
Then take one heart pill:
Next find a road. Preferably a road on private property, hundreds of thousands of miles from another living soul:
And then show your young driver the brake pedal, and tell her she must never ever neverever take her foot off of it. Ever:
Begin creeping down the rural road on your friend‘s ranch:
Stop to admire your cute hair on this low humidity day in rural Oklahoma:
Encourage your underage driver to avoid hitting the strange stop signs in the middle of the road:
Celebrate when your young driver begins to master her time behind the wheel of the car that’s not not a rental so what’s the confusion?
And suddenly you can’t help but contemplate a partner for your next cross continental United States road trip:
Avitable says
August 19, 2011 at 2:48 pmI learned to drive on a stick-shift when I was 14 and I accidentally drove the car right into the back wall of the garage and almost broke through into the living room.
BSTBXH says
August 19, 2011 at 2:52 pmDear Avitable, isn’t that called learning how NOT to drive?
Carmen says
August 19, 2011 at 2:53 pmOh, this is so dear!! Thank you for recording this moment…and sharing it with mothers of daughters like me who are going to be going down this same road in the blink of an eye. I just hope there aren’t any huge animals on the road, but as we live in Texas, the likelihood is very good.
DLuker says
August 19, 2011 at 2:56 pmFirst time driving is one of those things you never forget when you’re all grown up. Right up there with first kiss 😉
ps…just started reading your blog after PW wrote about you. It’s easy to see how y’all became friends. You’re both flaky as all get out. In a nice way, of course. 😀
Mr Farty says
August 19, 2011 at 2:56 pmMmmm, cute mom!
Er, I mean well done, Bossy’s Daughter!
WebSavvyMom says
August 19, 2011 at 3:00 pm–>I posted a video of my 4-year old NOT driving my husband’s Ford F350 last month. It was amazing how his short legs could hit the gas while he still managed to steer and honk the horn.
http://www.websavvymom.com/2011/07/wordless-wednesday-we-only-let-him.html
Amy says
August 19, 2011 at 3:10 pmAwww… my mom let me drive for the first time on a gravel road in the middle of nowhere, too. What’s the first thing I did? I put it in the ditch & fuhreaked out. Turned to mom & she said well, drive it out. 🙂 Good job, Bossy’s daughter; no ditch!
hollygee says
August 19, 2011 at 3:13 pmShe had to drive there. Don’t at least three of Ree twerps drive? How could she stand knowing that they drive and she doesn’t?
Patricia @Cooking Cakes and Chemistry says
August 19, 2011 at 3:29 pmI agree with Holly! How could she not try it when Ree’s 8yr old drives!!
junebug says
August 19, 2011 at 3:34 pmAnd of course, all practicing has to take place when you’re not of legal age to drive, how else could you get your driver’s license? I mean, that’s the way it’s done in Oklahoma!
KathyB says
August 19, 2011 at 3:34 pmOpportunity not to be denied! Good job, Bossy’s Daughter. Look quite comfy behind the wheel.
Much more comfy than Bossy. No scrips required 🙂
Gail K. says
August 19, 2011 at 3:45 pmI was going to say: why didn’t Ree’s kids teach her while you and Ree kicked back with hors d’oevres and wine? I’m sure MM and Josh would have kept an eye on them…not to mention the hundreds of cows around the place.
marathonmom says
August 19, 2011 at 4:14 pmshit, now I need a ranch and a rental car to teach my kids to drive….at least I have 3.5 years left…
BossysMom says
August 19, 2011 at 4:21 pmEven tho I eventually drove an 18-wheeler cross country….I started out the same way when I was 16, by sideswiping 3 cars in a row parked on a street. My mom said “out”.
Olivia says
August 19, 2011 at 4:34 pmOlivia’s brother started driving at seven. A tractor. Right through the wall of the barn.
Olivia waited until she was older to learn to drive. Her preferred destination was ditches (even when carrying a load of stolen wood and having to be hauled out of one of her ditches by the same farmer whose wood she had stolen).
Youthful indiscretions.
Caroline says
August 19, 2011 at 5:10 pmWAITWAITWAIT. Bossy’s mom drove an 18-wheeler cross-country??? DETAILS, PLEASE.
Kathy from NJ says
August 19, 2011 at 6:11 pmIt is not illegal to drive on private property. I live in a condo complex with private roads – police cannot ticket anyone on our roads.
I learned to drive a stick shift (on the column) by going up and down the driveway. Self-taught by watching DOD. Knowing how to drive a stick came in handy in college when the only car available to drive my injured roommate 18 miles to the ER was a stick (a Barracuda, am I dating myself?).
Bush Babe (of Granite Glen) says
August 19, 2011 at 7:48 pmAlmost EXACTLY how I learned to drive (except of course, our NOT HIRE CAR was a Land Rover with no brakes). And we had lots and lots of hills and trees to run into. At least the weird ‘stop signs’ move out of your way if you use the horn!
Go Bossy’s Daughter!
🙂
BB
Alexandra says
August 19, 2011 at 10:57 pmOut of a page in my life…we began this last week.
TaLK ABOUT HOW MANY TImes CAN YOU SAY THE WORd STOP IN TEN MINUTEs.S
Theresa in Alberta says
August 20, 2011 at 9:15 amBossy,,,your hair is adorable!!
Dear Bossy’s daughter….my name changed at age 14. My parents started calling me “their chauffeur” as I insisted on driving them everywhere when I earned my learners permit. On my 16th birthday, I earned on the first try my REAL drivers licence.
It has been posted on PW’s website comments, several years back…in OK underage/unlicenced drivers can drive on private property.
Shelley says
August 20, 2011 at 10:32 amHey, if Ree’s 6 year-old can drive a truck, so can Bossy’s daughter! You look good behind the wheel, Bossy’s daughter!
Karisa says
August 20, 2011 at 6:14 pmBush Babe,
When I went to feed cattle with my grandfather, honking the horn CALLED the cattle. They didn’t move, they just got more in the way.
jeanie says
August 20, 2011 at 11:26 pmWhen I learned to drive growing up, we had a few more impediments than the strangely-shaped stop signs – hills, corners and a uniquely corrugatged roads. Works the kangaroo hops out of the accelerator leg eventually.
Zak says
August 21, 2011 at 1:30 amI learned to drive a stick shift when I was ten, my dad let me drive while he “hayed the cows”.
I was country when country wasn’t cool.
Yay Bossy’s daughter.
Zak says
August 21, 2011 at 1:31 amI meant, “Yay Bossy’s daughter!”.
Exclamation, not a lazy, sarcastic period.
Also, your hair is very, very sassy.
Anita says
August 21, 2011 at 1:30 pmAround here most kids learn to drive somewhere around the age of 8. There are so many farms around here and the only way to not go under financially is to avoid hiring help so we use our kids to drive the trucks out in the field to pick up hay, to drive the tractor back to the house to get lunch and cold drinks, to pull trailers full of firewood because we don’t trust them to direct us out of the woods. They end up being better drivers than their parents!
Michelle O'Neil says
August 21, 2011 at 6:05 pmA friend had to teach me to drive, because my mom couldn’t handle it. She had no heart pills to help her!
Glad you and your daughter had a good time at the ranch! I enjoyed reading about it.
Abbey V. says
August 21, 2011 at 6:11 pmThat looks like the rural Oklahoma road where my grandparents had their farm and I learned to drive on rural Oklahoma roads! (Near Bremen, OK and Caldwell, KS). My mom taught me that hitting those stop signs was bad news, kinda like hitting a moose in AK where I learned to drive on regular roads. 🙂 What a great story. 🙂
Chesapeake Bay Woman says
August 21, 2011 at 10:15 pmWorlds are colliding here but not cars.
It’s all good.
Go Bossy’s Daughter!
zidia says
August 22, 2011 at 1:07 pmI want it known that I did NOT have to take heart pills when I taught Bossy how to drive!!
Craftwhack says
August 22, 2011 at 1:54 pmThat was the scariest story ever read, what with the underage driver, and the monster that jumped out at you in the middle of the road. You sure do have a gift for suspense…
Jami says
August 22, 2011 at 5:02 pmMy 15-year-old has not been driving for 2 years. The fact that he will know how to drive very well when it comes time to take his driving test at the end of November is due solely to his uncanny innate driving skills and NOT to chauffeuring his family around.
Now that Bossy has mentioned her NEXT United States Tour, Jami is excited.
And definitely sassy! Maybe even SASSSSSY!
Birdbrain says
August 22, 2011 at 7:09 pmDaughter just got her permit, and accuses me of having a white-knuckled grip on the armrest and attempting to put on the imaginary brake on the passenger side. I told her this wouldn’t happen if they let passengers drink in the car. I’m sure a stiff martini would work.
krg says
August 23, 2011 at 9:55 amshe’s a little old to be learning by ranch standards.
Amanda says
August 23, 2011 at 10:08 amFarm driving at any age is totally legal. And I drove cross-country with my mother at the tender, barely licensed age of 16. It was fantastic, although there was that one time I felt asleep at the wheel…on the Vegas strip. It all ended up fine, though, and it’s a memory I’ll always treasure.
joeinvegas says
August 23, 2011 at 10:44 amLike all those other six year olds behind the counter at MacDonalds (not that I go there or anything)
Steph says
August 23, 2011 at 12:10 pmOh, I read you but never comment. Couldn’t resist today though, our youngest daughter just received her permit and I long for the days when we went “home” to the country to teach our other girls how to drive on gravel roads. No, she gets to learn in a city and I wish you could share some of those heart pills!