When he was six my little brother Davie graduated from driving toy
trucks to driving the real thing. He persuaded Daddy to let him drive
the truck -- alone -- across the fields of our Montana farm and around
the farmyard. Davie knew all about truck driving by then. He had
seldom missed a movement Daddy or Grandpa made while driving.
It was an eerie sight watching Davie drive that truck, because you
couldn't see him. It appeared the truck was driving itself. Then you'd
locate the top six inches of his little blond head above the
dashboard, eyes peering intently ahead. In those days he didn't drive
in a seated position: he drove with his tiny bottom just brushing the
edge of the seat, while his feet grasped for the pedals and his neck
strained to keep his eyes above the dashboard. He drove well, putting
his whole body and mind into it. In fact, he drove so well that in the
fall he was allowed to drive the truck, full of wheat, over the farm
fields to our granary in the barn.
That day he glowed with happiness.
When he was eight, he was permitted to drive the family car IN THE
DRIVEWAY. He would spend entire Sunday afternoons doing so. He'd back
the car to the end of the driveway, stop, change gears, drive the car
forward forty feet to the garage, stop, change gears, back the car to
the end of the driveway, stop, change gears...
One Sunday afternoon when he was nine he began showing the results of
these training exercises. It was a raw March day, when the snow had
melted and the soil just thawed, turning the field beside the house
into icy clay gumbo. Which gumbo was several feet deep. Davie -- who
by then had let us know that David, not Dave and never again Davie,
was his name of
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