At the time that I was eligible to get a driver's licence, you could do the written exam at age 15 1/2 and then do the road test on the day that you turned 16. I had been driving on the sly on the back roads in the '47 Studebaker Champion until I couldn't find anymore gas so I was pretty confident about getting my licence and so it went.
I turned 16 at the end of November and in the spring my family decided that we would catch a flight back to Finland from where we had come in 1952 and hadn't been back in ten years. The tricky bit was that the plane left from New York City so we were going to drive across the continent. We had 5 days in which to make it to New York so the plan was to drive through the states from Everett on U.S. 2. Only parts of highway 2 are there today as most of it has become Interstate 90.
Five days for 5,000 miles didn't really leave a lot of time for dawdling. Dad had been a driver since he was thirteen - trucks, buses, trolleys - so hours at the wheel didn't bother him too much but I was just a newby. I think the reason that I can't seem to stick to the puny speed limits that we have now is primarily that cross continent drive. Even when I took my driver exam, speed limit on the highway was 65 miles per hour (104 kph) and often 50 mph (80 kph) elsewhere. School zones and parks were 30 mph (50 kph) so you can see that until the oil shortage of the early eighties, traffic moved along quite smartly. Highway 2 through Montana was entirely a different thing - no speed limit outside of town.
We had a 1956 Chevy wagon then, straight six engine, three on the tree. It was loaded down with four people, luggage for a month and gear including camping gear and cooler. So when we opened her up in Montana, she topped out at 120 mph (192 kph) - almost 200 kilometres per hour. I loved it. That Chevy did not have power steering so the steering wheel was at least 20 inches in diameter to give enough leverage to turn the nose. I don't think that steering wheels were ever again as large. The wagon also had a hood ornament that was like stylized eagle with outstretched wings. Highway 2 was just one lane in each direction so when we were travelling at speed, we lined up the hood ornament with the centre line (white) and put the pedal to the metal, as was said. When a hill came up, eased it to the right, just in case someone or something was there, and back to the centre when all was clear.
In the 1960's, and probably today, small western towns had a 25 mph speed limit. When we had been pounding along at 120 for a couple of hours and had to slow to 25, it literally felt like we were standing still. I had learned to drive, from dad, in a relaxed, in the back of the seat, easy grip on the wheel, style so I wasn't tense at high speed. Not so my mother who was relegated to the back seat when it was my turn to drive. I can still feel her breath on my neck as she clutched the back of the front seat so that her short stature could see through the windshield. To her great credit she didn't back seat drive and I expect that she and dad had words about letting me drive flat out, but I never heard about it.
Highway 2 paralleled the Great Northern Railway for much of the way to St. Paul Minnesota and passed through western towns that are just as much a part of the Canadian consciousness as American, maybe because of Hollywood. Towns like Missoula, Helena, Butte, Fargo. Great sounding names. From Minneapolis, it was various interstates to Chicago, Toledo, Akron and so on to New York. I was still a fresh faced kid but a veteran driver. But we were lucky too. Lucky not to have a flat tire when I was flying or having to dodge a deer or armadillo.
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