My first car was a 1993 White 4 Door Pontiac Grand Am.
(This was not my actual car...just a picture of a look alike I found.)
It was a good first car and we have a lot of laughs making fun of it...ask my sister!! Also a lot of good memories from learning to drive...just ask my mom and dad about them having me drive the entire family in it on Central during construction when they were re-doing the entire highway. (On the way home there was a ladder in the middle of the highway that led to a lot of yelling and discussion on whether to hit the ladder or stop on the highway. I think I cried the rest of the way home because I didn't know what I was supposed to do!) I had my first wreck in this car while driving around with my dad before I even got my license...I only had my learners permit at the time. Wasn't my fault, by the way. Someone pulled out in front of me. :)
The story I'm going to tell you is completely true...and yes, my dad knows that this happened. I think everyone in a High School Band in Garland at the time told on me!
Every year Garland has a Labor Day parade. All the High School bands, drill teams, cheerleaders, etc. participate; as well as many of the Middle School activities; and some of the PeeWee football teams at the Elementary School level. So, yes...this is a big deal! This particular year was my first year to drive. My brother was in band at this time as well, so I must have been a Junior and he was a Freshman. My parents were with my sister's cheerleading team...she was in Elementary School so they were helping out there and my dad was driving their float through the parade. The way we decided to set it up with some other friends in band was to drive to the end of the parade route to leave a car so we wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the beginning when we were done. We met at the end and 4 people (in addition to my brother and I - 6 total) piled into my car to go back to the beginning of the parade route to meet up with our band. The trunk was piled full of instruments of all kinds and people were sitting on each other's laps in the backseat...real safe, I know!
For those of you that know the area, the beginning of the parade route was the Park & Ride in downtown Garland. We get back there safely with a very overfilled, squatty car. I find a parking place and pull in. As I'm going to put the car in park, I see a spot a few rows over that is in the shade under a tree that was closer to people from our band. I thought that would be a much better place to park, so I told everyone to hold on before getting out so I could move to the other parking place. I put the car in reverse and a large SUV has stopped partially blocking the parking place I'm in and is letting people out of their car. I wait for a while and they are all just standing there talking, even though they see my reverse lights on. I honk and they ignore me. They were band parents and students from another high school band that happened to be one of our school's rivals. I got angry at their lack of consideration...and yes impatient. I flung my car into drive and floored it (to show them who they were messin' with). I was just going to drive through the parking place in front of me to get to the row with the space in the shade. What I failed to realize until it was too late was there was a SIDEWALK separating the 2 parking places. Not just those curb type things they sometimes have....an ENTIRE SIDEWALK!!
**To put everyone on the same page:**
For those of you that have no clue what I'm talking about, here is an aerial map of the area the incident took place.
If you look in the middle of the map, notice the open parking places and the sidewalk that separates them. Yes, that is a normal size sidewalk you would find on any normal street. And for those of you wondering...it happened on the 5th row from the bottom on the right, top row, far right parking place.
*Now that we're all caught up I will continue.*
Yes, my car goes up over the sidewalk. My front tires come to a stop on one side of the sidewalk, while my back tires are on the other side of the sidewalk with my car sitting on top of the sidewalk. I think for a minute I (along with the other 5 people and trunk load of instruments in the car) was in a state of shock at what just happened. I also think that EVERYONE that was in that parking lot getting ready for the parade stopped what they were doing to watch the fiasco going on with me and my car. I asked someone in the car what I should do and they said to try backing up to get off the sidewalk. So, I put the car in reverse and we back up...scratching all parts underneath the car. Backing up was a fail...we couldn't make it over the sidewalk. So we decide to go forward and have everyone but me get out of the car so it will raise up a little. This is the day I found out what rear wheel drive means because going forward over the sidewalk worked!! Along with scratching all parts underneath the car again. My car jumped up over the sidewalk and came to a park in the parking place in front of the original spot. At that time, I decided I would just leave the car there...I didn't need the spot with shade that bad afterall!!
I got out of the car, everyone in the parking lot staring at me, and tried to pretend like nothing happened. My carload of friends and I laughed about it later, but at the time we were all utterly embarrassed. We got our instruments out of the trunk and got ready to meet our band. I looked down at the sidewalk and there were TONS of scratches in the cement where the bottom of my car had gone back and forth. (The scratches are still there to this day! I can show you the exact spot it happened!) I tried calling my dad to let him know what happened, but he didn't answer. I threatened my brother with his life to not tell my dad what happened before I could talk to him. Didn't make much difference because my dad found out before I even saw him at the end of the parade. He didn't believe it until he saw what the car had done to the sidewalk. Luckily, it didn't hurt anything on the car. If it had, I may still be grounded from driving now!!
Thanks, dad, for putting up with all of us learning how to drive and being patient when little mishaps happened. :)
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