Fast Women

By Tony Kornheiser

Sunday, October 19, 1997; Page F01
The Washington Post 

Did you read the news story about a driver's ed teacher in
North Carolina who got so angry when someone cut him off
that he ordered the student who was driving to speed up and
catch the guy? And when she did, the teacher got out of the car
and punched the offending driver in the nose!

Is this really the kind of behavior we want from a teacher? Is
this really the lesson we want to be giving the youth of
America? I mean, if you have the dirtball cornered, shouldn't
you kick him in the groin, too?

Okay, okay, I admit that this guy was probably not the world's
best role model for containing road rage. Hiring him as a
driver's ed teacher would be like hiring a personal fitness
trainer who weighs 400 pounds, slugs bourbon from the bottle
and chain-smokes cigars.

This story got me thinking about my own driver's ed teacher
from high school. His name was Mr. Cmyalo (pronounced, I
swear, "Mister Smile-O!"). Mister Cmyalo never smiled. He
seldom talked. He was never big on driver's ed theory. The
only actual rule he ever imparted, to the best of my
recollection, was: "Never run over a cardboard box, because a
kid could be inside it."

Mr. Cmyalo was a big, beefy taciturn man who would sit in the
passenger's seat reading a newspaper while we drove, as if he
didn't have a worry in the world. A lot of students were grateful
for Mr. Cmyalo's calm demeanor; they interpreted his reading
the paper as a sign of confidence in them. I realized he just was
a rabid fan of the Jumble. There were three of us in the driver's
ed car. Me, Tina and Susan. Tina was wild and exotic. She ran
with an older crowd, many of whom left on sabbatical from
time to time to attend prison.

Being in the driver's ed car with Tina was really different. There
were always two lessons going on simultaneously: driving and
anatomy. Tina wore skirts the approximate width of a wedding
band. By the time she was 16 she'd already been driving for
four years. I didn't know why she was taking driver's ed; she
should have been giving it. I assumed Tina's earliest driving
experiences involved getaway cars.

Susan wasn't nearly the polished driver Tina was (neither was
Shirley Muldowney). In fact, the only time I ever saw Mr.
Cmyalo put his newspaper down was when Susan was driving.
Susan didn't inspire confidence when she got behind the wheel,
perhaps because she appeared to be legally blind. Her glasses
were so thick they came with a defroster. And she was scary
pale and terribly sensitive, and tended to become flustered
when the slightest thing went wrong -- for example, if she found
out that people in Yemen were starving, she would throw her
pasty hands in the air and begin to cry, which, as Tina and I
told her, wouldn't have scared us as much had she been in the
back seat and not behind the wheel at the time.

Once, when Susan was supposed to shift from park to reverse,
she dropped it into drive by mistake, and when she felt the car
going forward, she panicked and floored it. We shot forward
like John Glenn on the launch pad. The G-force made our
cheeks flap. And since we had all turned around to look out
the back window, our heads nearly snapped off. Mr. Cmyalo
slammed down so hard on the dual-control brake that I thought
he'd go through the floorboards. When we came to a stop we
were so shaken we all asked Tina for a cigarette -- Mr.
Cmyalo, too. 

The first time I ever drove the driver's ed car, Mr. Cmyalo had
me park it on a busy street in the commercial section of town. I
signaled that I was going to pull over to the right, and I guided
the car to the curb and pulled easily behind another parked car.

At that point I was supposed to switch from the front seat to
the back seat, so Tina could drive. (Tina liked to drive because
she could use the rearview mirror to put on her makeup.) I
carefully checked the street for cardboard boxes -- all clear --
and flung open the driver's side door, and BAM! These were
narrow streets, and a huge tractor-trailer sheared off the door!

One instant the door was there, and the next it was gone. The
force of the impact pushed the door 100 feet up the street. This
is my first time ever behind the wheel. And I see the truck
driver running toward the car, screaming about how I shouldn't
be allowed to drive even a little red wagon. And I begin to
shake because I didn't even have a license yet and already I'd
been in an accident. And I looked at Mister Smile-O, hoping
he'd say something reassuring.

And he said, "Mmmph. I guess I better drive back to school." 

(Makes you feel warm all over, doesn't it?)

And I got into the back seat, next to Tina, who was wildly
excited because of the violent, random and idiotic nature of the
crash. And you know, it could have been worse. 

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