Week Twenty-Four: Learning to Drive

My daughter took driver's ed this summer, bringing back a flood of memories for me. A perfect topic for a journal entry! I thought.

*How old were you when you learned to drive? What year was this?

*How did you learn? Was in it driver's ed (school or private) or with family or friends? Who taught you? If you took a class, what do you remember about the teacher, your classmates, and the course? Do you remember how much it cost? Did you use simulators?

*What kind of car or cars did you use in your training, either in class or with your family or friends? Do you remember the year, make and model? Stick shift or automatic?

*Where did you practice? Was there a certain road or a certain place that everyone in your community would go to learn to drive?

*What were the requirements at that time to earn a license? How old did you have to be to get a permit and to get a license? How much did it cost?

*Tell about your experience getting your license: the written exam and the driving test. Did you past the first time? Do you remember how well you did? Were there skills you struggled with or had to re-do? How old were you when you got your license?

*What was your worst driver's license photo? What was your best?

*Did you have your own car, or did you drive a family member's? What was the year, make and model? Did you love it, or were you embarrassed by it? What was your dream car (or truck)?

*Write about the different vehicles you've owned over the years: the years, makes and models; the color; what you liked or didn't like about them; how you came to purchase them and how much they cost at that time; why you got rid of them. What were your favorites and the ones you liked least, and why?

*How many years have you been driving? Have you ever gotten a parking ticket or a moving violation? Have you been in any collisions or other accidents? What is your driving record like? Write about those experiences.

Include photos of you and your vehicles, and/or find photos of the models you owned on the Internet to download and include in your journal.

Week Twenty-Three: Remembering 9/11

As I write this, it is already September 11th on the East Coast of the United States; the sixth anniversary of 9/11. This was an event that affected every American, whether we knew someone who was killed that day, or not. Our world shattered, and we felt vulnerable. We have all experienced tragedy on a national level at more than one point in our lives: JFK's assassination, for example, or the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Most of us have never recorded the events as we remembered them on those days, nor the feelings that accompanied them. There aren't many of the generation left that remembers Pearl Harbor, and even less who can recall the day World War I ended. The memories of those Big Events in our nation's history are being lost to time.

For your journal prompt to help you remember September 11, 2001, I invite you to go here to read and listen to the lyrics of Alan Jackson's "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?"

*How did you hear about the attacks of 9/11?

*What did you do that day? Did you go to work or school, or stay home?

*What were your feelings?

*How has what happened that day changed your life in some way?

*What are your hopes for the future, in connection with this tragedy?

I have posted my journal response here.