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The Longest Year

By Stan Crader

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Rite of Passage
A few years earlier, the boys had met at the stone each day and
whiled away the time after school talking adolescent prank strategy that
usually resulted in someone getting grounded. In those days they were
waiting for the Colby Telegraph, but today was vastly different. It was Saturday
morning and they weren’t waiting for a paper to deliver; a more
serious matter was at hand. A life-changing event was about to occur.
Clyde had just endured the longest year in a boy’s life. Tommy, Booger,
and the band of boys, all younger than Clyde, were huddled around the
stone in front of Gooche’s Grocery. Clyde was about to take the one exam
that all boys looked forward to, one that, if passed, would immediately
catapult him into a completely new and envied dimension—that of a licensed
driver.
The hour had finally arrived. The boys walked Clyde to the steps of
the courthouse and quietly wished him well. They didn’t want to get his
hopes too high or make a spectacle of what lay before him. There was no
farewell, just a nod or two, shoulder shrugs, and some murmuring that
might have been construed as an affectionate verbal “good luck.”
They stopped a few feet short of the massive double doors. Clyde
pulled his shoulders back, took in a huge breath, and then kept moving
toward the doors. He exuded confidence; the others, support.
Once Clyde disappeared into the cavernous courthouse, his anxious,
envious, suffering devotees ambled back across the street to the stone,
hands in pockets, toes kicking at street debris. There was nothing to do
but wait.
The Codgers, Bem, Fish, Monkey, and Rabbit, already sitting sentinel
over Colby from the courthouse bench, fondly watched the band of boys.
4 Stan Crader
Over the years they’d seen countless hopeful, anxious, and apprehensive
sixteen-year-olds walk the driver’s exam path. This time was different.
They’d occupied the bench during Tommy and Booger’s paper route days
and watched the tightly knit bunch develop from a gang of Clearasillathering
pip-squeaks into a group of boys inhabiting men’s bodies.
“Can you believe it?” Bem asked. Benjamin May’s real name had been
forgotten by most and never known by some.
“Believe what?” Monkey asked while cleaning his fingernails with the
small, well-used blade of a double-blade Case pocketknife.
“That those boys are gonna start drivin’, don’t cha know,” Bem replied.
Monkey, deep in thought, squinted his eyes into razor-thin slits and
pooched his thick lips. Montgomery Fulbright had retired as a tree trimmer.
He’d trimmed nearly every tree in Colby and done a superb job, as
opposed to the crew that came after his retirement and butchered many
of the town’s largest maple trees, leaving parts of Colby looking somewhat
akin to a nuclear test site.
Fish, the elder statesman of the group, also a World War I veteran
and a deacon at the First Baptist Church, pointed his finger skyward and
chimed in, “I’ll add ’em to the prayer list this Wednesday.”
Rabbit, with pinpoint accuracy, shot a mouthful of tobacco spit between
the exposed roots of a nearby maple tree. He no doubt felt the need
to participate in the banter but had to rid his mouth of the murky substance
before adding his two cents. “I’m just sayin’,” he murmured while
wiping the viscous drool off his chin and trying to come up with something
to actually say, “they better toe the line. That new state rod don’t
put up with no nonsense.” Rabbit, or Simon James—once known for his
speed as a high school football player—was referring to Colby’s newest
citizen and the area’s first resident state highway patrolman.
The boys, oblivious to the Codgers’ scrutiny, settled in for the wait and
kept a vigilant eye on the courthouse entrance. A stranger might have interpreted
their gaze as predatory, similar to a pride of lions watching a
herd of wildebeest.
Halfway through a boy’s second decade, his thoughts are consumed
with girls and driving. Everything meaningful seems to center on possession
of a driver’s license. The Revolutionary War was about liberty.
The westward expansion was fueled by the adventurous spirit that dwells
in the heart of man. Driving is the ultimate exploratory gateway. It’s the
The Longest Year 5
ticket to freedom and the elimination of one’s geographical boundaries.
It’s the first major game changer in a boy’s life. To an emerging male in his
early teens, driving is everything.
Birthdays are immovable. No matter one’s size or intellect, his birth
date can’t be changed. It’s an immutable point in time, and so one must
wait his turn to experience the rite of passage. Everyone waits, but time
moves excruciatingly slowly, and the intensity is immeasurable for boys
aspiring to be men.
The days between one’s sixteenth birthday and the test date are particularly
excruciating. Ailments such as constipation, diarrhea, loss of appetite,
and insomnia have been known to occur, sometimes simultaneously,
during that span of time. Tommy and the rest of the boys had heard Clyde
complain of every sort of ailment at one time or another during his final
pre-exam days.
Colby is so small that driver’s tests are only conducted during the
morning of the first and third Saturdays. Even though it’s the county
seat, there is seldom a large number of anxious test takers on any given
Saturday. There’s little fanfare except for those who present themselves
for examination. A sixteen-year-old boy without a driver’s license is like
a cowboy without a horse. Girls are different. They’re not consumed with
driving; they’re a mystery.
Fairview, a much larger town less than thirty miles away and considered
a city by its uppity residents, offers the driving test several days each
week. Occasionally, Fairview boys, fearful of negotiating city traffic and
flunking the driving part of the exam, come to Colby to take the test. They
hope to slip in and out without being noticed by locals, and generally that
is the case, but not this day. The eyes of those gathered around the stone
were ever vigilant.
The written test is simple enough, but fail it and the entire world knows.
It’s akin to having a nose-tip zit. It can’t be hidden. The critical difference
is that the zit eventually goes away, but the legacy of flunking the written
test lives on forever and is discussed at class reunions forevermore. The
pressure to pass causes one to doubt the simplest questions, such as the
shape of a stop sign or the color of a yield sign. The driver’s written test is
a daunting experience, particularly the first time.
Flop finished chewing his last fingernail to the quick and commenced
pacing; Tommy watched. Flop’s real name was Billy, and that’s the name
6 Stan Crader
most adults used, but he’d been Flop to the band of boys since the first
time they’d seen him with a crew cut. Fortunately, Flop had finally grown
into his oversized ears, the root of the nickname. But now his nose was
beginning to outpace the growth of his face. Flop couldn’t get a break.
While he appeared to be disproportioned and emaciated, he possessed a
feral-like athleticism.
Booger was removing his boot strings and retying them in a lateral
style. Of course, Booger wasn’t his real name. His parents had given him
Randy, but the band of boys had decided otherwise. Most of the town
referred to him affectionately by the name given to him by his band of
friends. Even at his mother’s funeral, the preacher had referred to him as
Booger.
Caleb noticed Booger’s new lace pattern. “Hey, that’s how the cheerleaders
tie their tennies.” Caleb hadn’t intended to be hurtful; he’d simply
made an observation. But the fact remained, Booger had just emulated
the cheerleaders’ lacing style, and Caleb’s use of the word “tennies” hadn’t
helped matters.
“I was just tryin’ it,” Booger said without looking up and then hastily
pulled the laces out and retied them in the traditional crisscross pattern.
Tommy began whistling “Last Kiss.” It sounded fine to him, but he
could tell by their wincing faces that the sound coming out of his pursed
lips sounded different to him than it did to his buddies.
He’d awoken that morning with stopped-up sinuses and described
the ailment to his mother as feeling like a floating check valve had been
installed behind his nose. When he lay on his left side, his right nostril
would clear; when he lay on his right side, his left nostril would clear. But
when he stood, both nostrils were clogged and his head hurt.
Tommy’s uncle Cletus had recently taught him how check valves function,
holding pressure one way but allowing free flow the other direction.
Since pressure continued to build in his sinuses, causing his head to hurt
and his eyes to feel as if they were about to pop out of their sockets, he
imagined a one-way pressure valve lodged in his sinuses. And since the
pressure was relieved when he lay one way or the other, he pictured the
floating nature of the imagined check valve.
Due to his clogged sinuses, Tommy’s voice echoed distorted inside
his head, which reduced control of tone in his voice or whistle. Still, his
tone control impairment exceeded that which might be caused by a comThe
Longest Year 7
mon cold. Tommy’s piano teacher was the first to discover—or the first at
least to break the news to him—that he was tone-deaf. That didn’t stop
Tommy from whistling in spite of the sharps and flats that originated
from his puffy face.
The “Uncle Sam Wants You” poster hanging in the post office window
reminded Tommy of the last time his ears had been so clogged. It was
when Gene Hickman had taken him and his dad for their first airplane
ride. Tommy was reminded of Gene because it was Gene’s wife, Dorothea,
who had designed the poster in 1942 and in doing so had won national
recognition for herself and Fairview. Since Gene and Dorothea were from
Fairview and nice people as well, Tommy concluded that not everyone
from Fairview was uppity.
Clyde had been in the courthouse too long. “Thing of it is,” Caleb began,
“I’ll bet he flunked.”
Tommy flinched at the suggestion and gave Caleb a look, as did the
others. They’d all been thinking likewise, but Caleb spitting it out like he
did was a jolt to the senses, unthinkable, disastrous. The pink Chrysler in
which they all hoped to be chauffeured around by Clyde was waiting next
to a sleek new Mustang, which the boys had yet to discover.
“He flunked second grade,” Caleb reminded them.
Everett stood but not to fidget. He’d always been larger than the rest
but now stood well over six feet and weighed more than two hundred fifty
pounds, very little of that fat. “Shut up, Caleb.” Caleb, a habitual smart
mouth, glanced Everett’s way and wisely did as instructed. Everett, naturally
possessed of a gentle spirit, settled slowly back onto the stone but not
before giving Caleb a second glare. “I helped him study,” Everett added.
The rest of the gang grinned. Everett was great on the offensive and defensive
lines, but he wasn’t perceived as the ideal study partner. He and Clyde,
both somewhat pigeonholed because of their size, had less in common
than most realized, but they had nonetheless become good friends.
Half glances were exchanged by the rest until the moment of tension
passed. Then, almost in unison, they tugged at their pants, rolled their
shoulders and stretched their necks, a male thing, and then resumed staring
across the street at the courthouse doors. If Clyde emerged with an
instructor, he’d passed. Nobody was sure what the flunking protocol was,
probably slipping out the back and running home. But Clyde wasn’t the
8 Stan Crader
running home type. Tommy suspected that an examiner flying out a side
window of the courthouse would be a sign that Clyde had flunked. And
Clyde wouldn’t be doing the tossing; his mom was the real threat in that
family. Even Everett knew better than to mess with her.
Until second grade Clyde had been the youngest in his class. Midway
through the year, his dad had been killed in a logging truck accident. For
Clyde, the loss was devastating and costly. After missing several weeks of
school and being unable to catch up with the rest of the class, he’d been
retained and suffered a humiliating return to the second grade.
His mom had threatened the entire school board, but the preacher
talked some sense into her before any bodily harm was done. It wasn’t
until sixth grade, when he was promoted from the B class to the A class,
that he fully recovered from the stigma of flunking. And now, as the oldest
in the class, he was the first to turn sixteen. The tables had fully turned.
Tommy was the first to notice the strange car. “Whose Mustang?” he
asked. It was a rhetorical question meant to draw attention to a car that
he’d never seen before. The boys had already inventoried and discussed every
worthwhile car in the county. They’d have known about the Mustang
if it belonged to anyone in the area.
“Probably some Fairview sissy,” Caleb replied. The rest of the gang nodded
in agreement and took envious notice of the sleek, spotless sports car
sitting next to the pink, rust-spotted Chrysler that hadn’t been washed
since being driven off the car lot some ten years earlier. Clyde occasionally
defended the color by saying the window sticker had listed the color as
salmon, but the boys, not proficient on the Madison Avenue color chart,
saw pink. The Chrysler’s paint looked particularly aged while sitting next
to the deep, reflective finish of the dark-blue Mustang.
“Can’t get many people in that dadgum Mustang,” Everett added, his
envy sufficiently veiled. Sour grape nods ensued.
Booger noticed Tommy’s pained expression. “What’s up with you?” he
asked, sensitive to Tommy’s frequent sniffs. “You look like you just took
some cough medicine.” Tommy had in fact taken a double dose of Vick’s
Formula 44, but his distressed look was compounded by a problem that,
unlike a head cold, wouldn’t soon pass. It would be more than a year before
he’d be taking the driver’s test. Every single one of his friends would
be turning sixteen before Christmas, and he’d yet to celebrate his fifteenth
birthday. The cold simply compounded his misery.
The Longest Year 9
“My head feels like it’s about to explode,” Tommy replied, diverting the
real issue but showing clear signs of the stated problem.
Tommy and Booger exchanged sympathetic glances. Booger was
sensitive to others in pain; he’d lost his brother in Vietnam three years
earlier and had dealt with depression since. But his condition had improved,
until the campus antiwar protests ramped up during the past
year, and then the shooting at Kent State back in the spring. He’d begun
to wonder if his brother had died for nothing. Tommy’s uncle Cletus
and other war veterans had counseled Booger and assured him that
the protestors were loony bin candidates. Nonetheless, Booger had acquired
a gift for silence. He usually carried a book with him, an act for
which any of the others would have endured endless teasing. Booger’s
loss put him into a protected class of sorts. Throughout the summer
he’d been reading books recommended by Miss Anderson, mostly about
the Founding Fathers.
But it wasn’t his throbbing head or the fact that he had more than a
year to wait before walking the driver’s exam path that had Tommy vexed
at the moment. His primary ailment was more specific. Melody would
turn sixteen in less than a month. How would it work with everyone but
him having a driver’s license, he wondered. He was sitting on the stone
where he and Melody had first kissed. She’d helped him with the paper
route during a snowstorm, and on their way home, Tommy had worked
up his nerve to make his move at the stone. They’d been sweethearts off
and on since.
Flop was rabidly pacing back and forth when Everett noticed something
different about him. “Hey,” he said, “you shaved.”
Flop self-consciously rubbed his fingers up and down the area in front
of his ears, which, the previous day, had been flocked with a thick covering
of peach fuzz. “Just right here,” Flop first said, and then added, “My mom
made me.” Those four words would be repeated over and over in perpetuity.
He’d be reminded of them when friends signed his yearbooks and
eventually at class reunions.
“’My mom made me’?” Everett asked, repeating the words exactly as
Flop had said them.
Flop looked around sheepishly and then explained. “Last night, after
we sat down for dinner, she told me to go wash my face. And I told her
I’d washed.” The other boys, except for Everett, understood; they’d all had
10 Stan Crader
similar experiences. Everett had been shaving at least once per week since
sixth grade.
“Well,” Flop continued, “she started rubbing my face with a dish towel
and then told my dad that it was time for me to start shaving.” Flop
shrugged and sat down on the stone.
“What then?” Everett asked.
Flop shook his head, disgusted. “We all went into the bathroom, and
I shaved while both of them watched.” He then pointed at his sideburns.
“But just right here.”
There were giggles, but with faces in similar stages of maturation, nobody
made fun.
The first shave for a boy is always a dilemma. Peach fuzz thickens,
then stiffens, and then begins to darken. And one area of the face will mature
quicker than another. So, the first shave is usually to remove a small
patch of legitimate adolescent whiskers while most of the face is covered
in good old-fashioned silky-soft, prepubescent peach fuzz. Booger had
only shaved the area in front of his ears and had obviously hoped nobody
would notice.
Thoughts of peach fuzz vanished and all ears perked up at the raw,
reverberating rumble of glasspack dual exhausts. From the sound, they
knew the car before it came into view. All concerns about Clyde or Melody
were immediately dismissed and replaced with the visual of Miss Anderson’s
red ’66 GTO. Top down, she came around the corner and rolled
to a stop, only feet from the stone. Tommy and the boys had found her
electrifying when she’d moved to Colby four years earlier, and the sensation
hadn’t abated. It wasn’t that she flaunted her natural beauty; she
didn’t have to. It was out of her control. Her femininity radiated. Most
of the native ladies of Colby had gradually warmed to her, but there were
still holdouts, such as the regulars at Colby Curls Beauty Salon, known
more for rumor-cultivating chitchat than achieving beauty.
Flop, having developed into a lithe-footed athlete, won the race to
open Miss Anderson’s car door. “Why, thank you,” she said after emerging
energetically from the car. The boys had all been in her class the
previous year where they’d studied about George Washington and his
penchant for deportment. She looked first at Flop and then scanned the
band of boys while pulling her long, thick hair into a ponytail. When she
drove with the top down, she always let it blow in the wind. According
The Longest Year 11
to the women at Colby Curls, she didn’t dress ladylike. When tying her
ponytail, the Colby Indians sweatshirt she was wearing pulled up slightly,
revealing an inch or so of bare skin, including her belly button. Every
pulse surged.
“So, is Clyde taking the exam?” she asked. Tommy swallowed and
gulped in a mouth breath. He hadn’t taken a breath since she’d tied her
ponytail. The combination of Miss Anderson and her drop-top GTO was
too much for the senses. His brain had momentarily shut down most of
his involuntary bodily functions, such as breathing and saliva swallowing.
Everett of all people, thought to be slow witted, was the first to answer.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. It wasn’t much of a response, but for two words he
was rewarded with Miss. Anderson’s full attention. The rest of the boys
were immediately envious.
She first winked at Booger and then looked directly at Everett. “So,
has he finished the written yet?” Miss Anderson had been seeing Booger’s
dad for a couple of years. Booger stuck his hands deeper into his pockets,
rocked heel to toe, and blushed.
“No, ma’am,” Everett replied. Tommy noticed Everett contorting his
face, licking his lips, and racing his tongue from tooth to tooth. His mouth
too had probably gone dry. It’s a phenomenon that Tommy had discovered.
When speaking to adults, the mouth either waters too much or
not at all. Everett would be swallowing if there was too much saliva. Dry
mouth it was, Tommy deduced, and then he rescued Everett.
“He’s been in there for about an hour,” Tommy said.
“He was most sangfroid when he went in,” Everett said, earning him
a Miss Anderson wink. She’d gotten on him for using “dadgum” as his
standby reply and encouraged him to learn and use new words. None of
the others had any idea what he’d just said. Flop frowned. Caleb was momentarily
silenced. Tommy figured it was a word Everett had just learned.
A few seconds passed and the conversation continued as if nothing had
been said.
“Well, he should be coming out anytime,” she replied encouragingly,
as if she actually knew. “What are the plans once he gets his license?” she
asked.
Tommy looked around and replied on behalf of the rest, “We don’t
have any plans; maybe go to the Houn-Dawg for lunch. Most of us have
to work this afternoon.” All the boys had jobs, and all had asked off while
12 Stan Crader
Clyde took his test. There were no afternoon plans, but they’d given considerable
thought to that evening.
The boys jumped when the courthouse doors swung open, but it wasn’t
Clyde.
“Who’s that twerp?” Caleb asked. Miss Anderson grinned.
“I’ll bet he gets in ’at dadgum ’Stang,” Everett replied.
“Oooh, nice car,” Miss Anderson said once she’d seen the Mustang. Her
admiration of the twerp’s car struck a nerve with the Colby boys. The boy
from Fairview was forever marked as a result of Miss Anderson’s interest
in his car.
The boys were scrutinizing both foreigner and Mustang when Clyde
came bounding through the courthouse doors sporting a deeply dimpled
smile. He waved proudly and headed for the pink ’62 Chrysler.
“He did it!” Everett said and slapped Flop on the back. Flop staggered
and then caught his balance. “Oh, sorry,” Everett said and then placed his
giant paws on Flop’s shoulders and gently squeezed. Everett was aware
that his body size could intimidate. He used it to his advantage only when
necessary, but seldom with his band of buddies.
Nobody cared that the barge of a car had winged rear fenders and that
the fender wells were rust ringed. It had four doors and was a veritable
mobile living room. And with it, the world beyond Colby awaited them.
In spite of its age spots and river barge design, the Chrysler had a feature
that held great promise, and one that the boys were anxious to experience—
a convertible top. There was one small problem. The top hadn’t
been put down since Clyde’s father had died, which was a few months
after the car had been driven off the showroom floor. There was no way
of knowing if it still worked without testing it. And Clyde had mentioned
not wanting to put the top down, sort of out of respect for his dad. It was
a weird notion, which the boys hoped he’d eventually resolve.
Nonetheless, top or no top, the Chrysler would eventually be their
chariot. And that time would be now if Clyde pulled off the driver’s portion.
The no-nonsense examiner followed, clipboard in hand, policeman-
style hat pulled down to the point of almost covering his heartless
cavernous eyes.
The examiners were nameless; nobody knew from where they came or
to where they returned. To a fifteen-year-old, examiners weren’t totally
human. They wore brown uniforms similar to those Hitler youth thugs
The Longest Year 13
who roamed the streets of 1930’s Germany; the boys had seen photos in
the encyclopedia.
The Mustang pulled out just before Clyde reached the Chrysler.
“You can do this,” Tommy heard Everett whisper. They were all thinking
the same thing. In a sense, Clyde was taking the test for all of them.
He embodied the aspirations of all. He was the driver’s test pioneer, so to
speak. New ground was being broken.
They watched Clyde pull away, his hands at ten and two, and head
toward the Methodist church where the parallel parking cones were set
up. The high-pressure part was over. It would be no disgrace to flunk the
driver’s part of the test. Rumor had it that the jackbooted examiners liked
to flunk the first few drivers of each class, especially boys, just to send a
message. Just the same, the pride of the group was on the line. They raced
on foot to the back of the church and took positions to watch the most
difficult part of the driving portion of the exam, parallel parking. It’s not
that they wanted to hide from Clyde, but, sensitive to his emotions, they
hid from view so as to not disturb his focus.
They were on foot because it was considered bad form for a fifteenyear-
old boy to ride a bicycle. A bicycle is at first recreation, and then it
becomes transportation. But after a boy’s fifteenth birthday, riding a bicycle
screams to the world, “I can’t drive.” Once a driver’s license and a car
are in hand, then a bicycle is an acceptable option, or as the girls say, cute.
Before reaching the church, the driving exam course snakes through
a neighborhood and up Church Hill. The examiners get their thrills by
sitting stoically in the passenger seat and observing the victims drive
down unmarked streets and deal with intersections, some with and most
without stop signs. Crossing the unmarked and imagined centerline or
not coming to a complete stop at an intersection is automatic failure. The
stopping is easy enough, but the centerline is in the examiners’ imagination
and anybody’s guess. And it’s a known fact that if the examiners
choose to do so, they can simply say that you crossed the line. Who’s to
know, and there’s no appeal. The brown-shirts have all the power.
And then there’s Church Hill. Each car must stop on the steepest part
of the hill, back up ten feet, and then proceed. Starting from a dead stop is
very difficult for new drivers using a stick, and it’s often their demise. It’s
best to borrow an automatic, but a true rite of passage requires the test be
taken in a stick. The question inevitably comes up during one’s sixteenth
14 Stan Crader
year, “So, did you take the test in an automatic or a stick?” It’s important
to be able to say, “Stick.”
In Clyde’s case this didn’t matter. His dad had been a log-truck driver.
Mastery of the clutch was no doubt a genetic trait gifted to Clyde. He
had nothing to prove. The Chrysler, the chariot, the gateway to adventure,
featured a push-button automatic. It made no difference. Long live King
Clyde and the Chrysler chariot.
Out of breath, the boys peered from their respective hiding places.
Conveniently, the first car to arrive at the parallel parking cones was the
Mustang. Some things come natural, and the urge to intimidate boys
from another town is innate. As if on cue, the band of boys emerged and
approached the edge of the street. Their hope was to distract the intruder
and cause him to hit a cone. To their dismay, the driver effortlessly maneuvered
the short sports car into the center of the cones on the first try.
Slump shouldered they retreated. “That don’t seem fair,” complained
Everett. While his vocabulary had improved dramatically during the summer,
his grasp of the irregular verb had not.
“Yeah,” Caleb agreed. “Any sissy coulda parked that itty-bitty ’Stang
thang.”
The pink chariot was in view, and the boys peered out from their hiding
places. Clyde slowed to a full stop adjacent to the cones and, at a snail’s
pace, maneuvered the barge into perfect position. Tommy could see the
examiner smiling, a rare but good sign. Maybe the aliens do have hearts,
he thought.
The boys raced back to the stone and were waiting when the Chrysler
eased into the same parking spot it had left. Clyde emerged from the
chariot sporting a molar-exposing grin. His mom gave him a crushing
hug and tousled his already disheveled hair. The band of boys reacted by
puffing out their chests, repeatedly tucking in their T-shirts, and mentally
working through the consequence of Clyde’s new possessions—the
coveted driver’s license, independence, liberty. His passing the test was
monumental.
A possibility not considered by the boys was that Clyde had taken the
exam before the school class cutoff date; the examiner had most likely
sympathetically mistaken him for the youngest in the class. But then
Clyde had parked perfectly. It didn’t matter; he’d passed.
Tommy tossed Clyde a MoonPie, Clyde’s favorite. “Congratulations.”
The Longest Year 15
The rest of the gang stared in admiration. In the heart of every redblooded
American boy is the relentless desire for adventure. Clyde and
his Chrysler were their ticket to new frontiers.
Tommy contemplated the independence that driving represented and
how the small slip of paper shrank the world for those who possessed it.
But one of the notions that Miss Anderson had impressed upon them
during the George Washington studies was responsibility. “With independence
comes responsibility,” she’d said many times. Tommy began to
mull over the consequence of Clyde, the Chrysler, and what lie ahead for
the band of boys. For a brief moment his age and the days and months
that lie ahead until he’d be taking the driver’s test slipped his mind.

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