ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 9, 1997 TAG: 9704090009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I now report that I'm again licensed to drive an automobile in the state of Virginia and elsewhere until April 30, 2002.
That is, unless all of the computers can't handle the change in the century and, if they can't, we'll probably all explode anyway.
There are dark sides to life, however, and I have realized that the first cop who sees my new license is going to charge me with being under the influence while posing for an official state picture.
I've shown the new picture around, and most people agree that I look like a wind-blown drunk in his declining years. I look wind-blown because I had spent a lot of time outdoors trying to find the Department of Motor Vehicles office. I forgot to comb my hair before posing for the picture.
That simpering look on my face was not put there by alcohol, but by panic, and I can't help it that my head looks so big.
Oh, no! My peripheral vision!
The motor vehicle people have always been nice to me - overlooking the fact that I screwed up the whole procedure when I put my forehead in the wrong place on the machine that tests your vision.
This meant that originally I couldn't see the flashing lights that test your peripheral vision.
And then you say to yourself: "Oh, no! My peripheral vision is gone!"
It bothered me a little to have to take a number and then see it flash up on this screen that tells you to go to Window Four. But I was encouraged to see that all of the people in the building weren't wearing pink jumpsuits with numbers on their chests.
I mean, it kind of makes you want to walk up to Window Four and say, "Number 220 reporting. Let us band together against the infidels."
This is not the very best thing to do when you are a wind-blown license applicant in a Men's Only Jacket that needs cleaning.
But, hey, boys. I'm not criticizing anybody. I like my license, picture and all. Honest. Don't send somebody to take it away.
There wasn't a single person who didn't wish me well and this one woman got me through the peripheral vision stuff very handily.
All of which leads me to explain why motor vehicle persons - no matter how nice they are - make me nervous.
The origin of my gray hair
In the summer of 1952, although I was 25 at the time, I didn't have a driver's license. I had always been afraid of combustion engines - and still am. I had never driven a car.
After some instruction, I showed up, clear-eyed and expectant, at the Montgomery County courthouse in a 1950 Ford, in which the heater didn't work.
I was not there very long before a red-headed woman who tested your driving had doomed me.
I was making a left turn at the old Palace Theater in Christiansburg when she started screaming that I was turning in front of a tractor-trailer that seemed to me to be in the outskirts of Floyd at the time.
(I once sat through "Ben Hur" at the Palace - which I'll regret for the rest of my life.)
They didn't take pictures in those days, and I am glad they didn't. My hair was a nice shade of brown. After I made the left turn, streaks of gray started appearing.
I might be available for private showings of my driver's license pictures for a modest fee. Bring your own beer.
LENGTH: Medium: 68 linesby CNB