Baby You Can “Park” My Car

Maryland has eliminated parallel parking as a requirement for passing the state’s driving test.  As of Tuesday, it’s gone.  There was no phase out period, it is just outta here, kaput, no more.  The Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) determined that the skills required to perform parallel parking “are sufficiently tested in another reverse turning maneuver”.  Buel Young, identified as an “MVA Spokesperson”, was credited with this statement in the Baltimore Sun.  I’m betting Buel lives in the suburbs.  

I’m more inclined to believe Tom Pecoraro of the “I Drive Smart” school, who had this to say in a Washington Post article: “everyone in the industry is saying the parallel parking fail rate was pretty high, and MVA wants to be able to push people through.”   In other words, a portion of the test is hard and lots of folks fail, so let’s get rid of the hard part.  Really?  MVA postulates that if fewer people fail, fewer people have to be re-tested and lines and waiting times at the MVA will be reduced.  You think so?

Well, put me down as not liking this change.  Why does it bother me?  I’ll tell you why-- I am a very good parallel parker!  Yes, and I have been since the day I got my license.  Much of the credit for this goes to my Dad.  He pulled off what I thought was a very clever trick.  He was aware of the dimensions of the MVA space used for the test and when he set up a practice space for me in the parking lot of J.C. Parks Elementary School – he significantly reduced the space. 

After weeks of practice, I learned to squeeze a 1964 Chrysler New Yorker into a very small space.  When I finally took the test, I was amazed at the size of the actual space.  Piece of cake, I whipped that big old Chrysler with its “push-button” automatic transmission neatly into place.  Shortly after, I was on my way with a bona fide Maryland Driver’s license! 

There was not much call for my skills during my first few years of driving.  But when I moved to a dormitory on Michigan Avenue in NE Washington, DC, I found that my skills were much in demand.  Even before I was allowed to take my car to school, I was often called upon to park my dorm mates’ cars. This continued even after I had my own car at school and was the source of a few dollars here and there to fill the tank of my 1963 VW bug. 

Although I dwell on this particular skill that is no longer prized, I can list a number of things I’m good at that are slowly becoming dated, outmoded, de-valued and just plain obsolete:

·                    * Neat, attractive and readable cursive (a.k.a. The Palmer Method),

·                    *Timely & well written thank you notes on real notecards,

·                   * Touch typing on a standard (i.e. desk top) keyboard at roughly the speed of light,

·                    * And, the creation of excellent “mix tapes” (okay, CDs) for all occasions.

I also routinely do lots of other things that immediately mark me as a relic such as -- write checks; pay cash at Starbucks for coffee, I said coffee – not a Grande mocha, macchiato, ½ caff/decaf with soy milk in a Vente cup, just coffee; download music to my iPod; (WTF is “Spotify”, anyway); drive a car that has a key; have difficulty playing a DVD (yes, a DVD) and finally, I must confess, I’m not quite sure what the difference is between “blue tooth” and “blue ray”…

So thank you, my beloved state of Maryland for eliminating a young driver’s rite of passage, lest it require too much effort, and also for stealing just a little bit of my joy. 

I’m just saying.

   1963 Baby Blue, VW Bug
(Note Sunroof) 
Circa 1972