The car screeched, lurched forward like a frog, and gave a loud grinding sound as the gears stripped away.        "Put on the brakes," my father shouted above the noise. "God Damn it. I said put on the brakes!"        A long sigh and then the process began again, screech...lurch...grind and finally we were off. An about-to-be liberated woman was at the wheel of a green '52 Pontiac as we flew down the road, leaving only dust behind. I could barely see over the seat, peeking through my fingers which were trying to cover my eyes as we whizzed by the neighbors, their mouths agape. Since it was the first time I had ridden in a car driven by a woman--she was not just any woman, of course, she was my mother--I was a little afraid of what might happen. I could not imagine that my world would come to an end because my mother was at the wheel. A touch of worry, but mostly thrill, excitement, and admiration swept over me as I watched my mother drive. I swear I can still hear the clucking sounds that some of the women were making at us, or more pointedly, at my mother. The men seemed to cast their eyes sympathetically at my father, probably thinking, "You poor man. You didn't have a choice in the matter. Marilyn forced you to do this." Or perhaps they were worried that this was their destiny too.        My mother's driving lessons were my first introduction to the world of women's issues. Strong opinions on whether women should drive flowed out of people's mouths like melted snow down a flooded river in the spring. It was the early 50s and most women did not drive, but that never stopped my mother. My father worked long hours at his newly-formed business, and she was at home with one child and another on the way. It made sense to both her and my father that she should learn to drive. Fortunately for my mother, my father didn't seem to have ideas that were cast in stone about what a woman should and shouldn't do. In those days, one didn't need formal driving lessons. A person just had to have someone show them how to maneuver a car around so she could pass a test given by the local police department, and then they licensed her to be on the road--the road to freedom. I am proud to say that my mother passed the driving test on her first try.        After that glorious day, a whole new world of independence opened up to her. One could see it in her eyes that she would look forward to each new journey she made in her Pontiac. The same clucking women were also her friends or soon became her friends as she steered all of us around our town. Sometimes the excursions had a specific purpose like groceries, doctor appointments, or errands--other times we were simply exploring.        Cars didn't have seat belts in the 50s, so when ever the traffic caused her to make an unexpected stop, she would just fling out her arm to stop me from tipping too far forward. With each new trip her driving improved. Eventually she mastered it to the point where she was driving with only one hand on the wheel. She had an odd habit of running her fingers through her hair with the other hand. It was a cocky kind of pose she had at the wheel, as if to say, "I'm the Queen of this road, Buster."        "Rumhead" and "Battle-ax" were the words she used to describe others at the wheel who were committing driving sins; she was very serious about her responsibilities as a driver. And if a driver wasn't going the speed she thought they should be, she drove as close as she could to their bumper "to help them along." One could say she had a pushy nature, but of course that wouldn't be quite fair since a man with the same nature would be praised for being determined or aggressive. "Pushy" sounds too negative to describe my mother, but never-the-less people at that time would have used that word to describe her.        Even though my father was the one who taught her to drive, a few years after she got her license she must have decided that his needed improving, because the only squabbles they seemed to have revolved around his driving. She became an enthusiastic backseat driverŠso zealous that many times my father would just offer her the wheel in desperation. "You want to drive? Well, be my guest." he would say with a shrug. Much to his credit, he didn't seem to care about having total power in the family structure; instead, his temperament was easy going.        My mother wasn't the kind of mother one would see on television on a show like Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It to Beaver. As a matter of fact, she said Harriet Nelson and June Cleaver made her nauseated. "I think aprons look stupid on women," she would say. I don't think it was really the aprons that she didn't like as much as it was what they signified. The female television characters were always portrayed in aprons with an unflaggingly sweet facade. They seemed to be personified as someone's unrealistic idea of what women should strive to be like, rather then who they actually were.        Sometimes, I felt a little embarrassed by my mother and her odd ways. It seemed to me that she should be a little sweeter--perhaps more delicate--maybe just a touch more like Harriet Nelson, June Cleaver, or Donna Reed.        My friends' mothers all wore house dresses with the dainty little flower prints. I certainly never saw one of these dresses in her closet, nor on her. Instead she preferred shorts, slacks or pedal pushers. She had a snappy way of dressing that made people take notice, as if to say, "I'm not just anybody. I'm somebody to be reckoned with." She was tall and slim with the most beautiful dark brown hair and eyes to match. Her looks alone were enough to intimidate, but it was mainly her way of speaking that could cut to the heart of a matter, letting people know that she could see right through them, if they needed seeing through.        We lived in Jackson, a small town in southern Michigan; a town most would call conservative, known as the birth place of the Republican Party. Our house was nestled among others in a subdivision where the neighbors all knew each other and made it their business to know each other's business. From the first day my mother started her driving lessons, one could feel a change in the air. She was the first woman on her street to drive a car. I didn't realize it at the time, but the lessons I learned back then from her example would guide me through my life.