I remember this conversation like it was yesterday. Dad, can I have a car?
"No. You don't need one."
My father had one other stock answer. "Yes, when you buy one with your own money."
Either way, Dad knew I wasn't getting a car. He didn't really want me to have one either. Years later he told me that when kids get cars, they start worrying more about their cars than they do about their school work and activities, and he didn't want me to do that.
One of my not-so-favorite high school memories is that every time I got to borrow the car, a 1971 Buick Electra 225 Limited, it never seemed to have any gas in it, which left me footing the bill for $1.38 a gallon gasoline -- a hefty price back in the early 1980s.
So I got my first car when I was 22 years old and in my last semester in college, a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere. It was okay, I could have slept through my classes and still graduated. I needed hours.
Though I feel like I've been chained to them ever since by gas prices, insurance premiums, parking fees, tolls, repairs, payments. It's almost a liberating experience to go to a city with an extensive public transportation network, so you can thumb your nose at the automobile for at least one day.
Now, I'm a parent, and I get to hear the same questions from my daughter.
And it's a bit eerie how much I sound like my own father, although we will teach her to drive, and she will get her license when she's old enough.
After the first week of school though, I did start to think about how much easier life would be if my daughter had her own car and she could drive herself here and there for school functions, etc.
Naaah. I think my dad was right. A car is one less thing to worry about when you've got all that drama that is high school to go through. Besides, I've got to see how she's going to pay for gas for my car.