Confederate Avenue | The Final Exam

We all remember our first driving test.  For most of us who grew up in the East Atlanta/South DeKalb area in the 60’s and 70’s, that test was administered at The Department of Motor Vehicle Services, 959 E Confederate Ave SE, Atlanta, GA 30316.  I remember the day I took my test like it was yesterday.  First you took your eye exam.  Easy enough, but I was nervous.  I started reading the letters, messed up and asked the nice lady behind the counter if I could start over.  “Step to the left, pick up your written test and instructions,” she told me.  She hadn’t listened to a thing I said when I was reading the eye test or afterward.  Some things never change… After the eye test and the written test came the driving test.  You didn’t find out if you had passed until you had taken all three.  

At Confederate Avenue, there was a driving course beside the building.  It is pictured above circa 1971, when the bulk of my colleagues and I took our tests there.  At the top is the shed where you would stop and give your paperwork to the Driver Examiner, who would then inspect your vehicle.  This was where I hit my first snag.  We pulled up in my dune buggy.  The Examiner took one look at it and told my father he couldn’t test me in that car.  “Why not?  It’s street legal,” said my father.  Which was true, it had a fiberglass body, a top, a tag, a Georgia State Safety Inspection sticker and everything.  “Well, first of all, it ain’t got no doors,” said the Examiner.  “Second, it ain’t got seat belts, side mirrors or windows.  And honestly, how to expect me to test him parallel parking this thing?  You can turn the wheels and pull it in sideways.”  My father had to go home and get the ’65 Fairlane.  Other than the fact it was three times as big as the dune buggy with a three on the tree, I had driven exactly it exactly twice.  I was doomed.

I pulled out of the shed with the Examiner and his clipboard, and went down the road to the left.  Speaking of the left, my late wife Marie took her driver’s test at Confederate when she came to the States in ’68, even though she lived in Smyrna.  Don’t ask me why, but she did.  Anyway, being from England, she started off down the left hand side of the road.  She was in a ’63 Impala, ran up on the curb and parallel parked cockeyed.  The Examiner told her, “Here, you passed.  You actually drive better than most people in this country.”  I’m sure the fact that she was 18, blonde with a British accent and wearing a mini skirt which came up to her hips didn’t have a thing to do with it.

Anyway, we went down the road and stopped at Stop sign at the crosswalk.  No problem so far.  Then I made a right and rode the clutch up to the top of the little hill to the Railroad Crossing.  Stopped at the Railroad Crossing, made another right, continued up and parallel parked.  It took me a couple of tries, but I got ‘er in there.  Back at the shed, the Examiner handed me my evaluation sheet.  He had a mark next to the Railroad Crossing.  I asked him why, I had made a complete stop.  He said, “Oh, you didn’t look both ways.”  I wanted to tell him I was pretty sure there weren’t any trains coming, but thought better of it.  He also noted  I needed to work on my parallel parking.  My father told me not to worry, we all need to work on our parallel parking.  Years later, when my daughter got her license, the Examiner noted she needed to work on her parallel parking.  “Don’t worry, Honey,” I told her, “we all need to work on our parallel parking.”  

I passed with less than flying colors, but I passed, and that was all that mattered!  I drove my father home, ditched the ’65 Fairlane, and climbed in the dune buggy.  I headed straight for the Clifton Springs for my first ride across the dam, around the wall behind the beach and behind the clubhouse… Still Cruisin’!  –J.