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Despite not having driven a car in more than a year, I was able to drive acceptably well these past few days. I remember my first driving lessons, when I was twenty years old, and at first I could not steer a vehicle, not knowing how much to turn the steering wheel.
By contrast, when I passed through a curving tunnel under Baltimore on Friday, moving at forty or so m.p.h., I was able to steer reliably, and remain in the proper lane, not sending the car into the side of the tunnel, or into the other lane. I reflected, then, and at other points during the trip, that I don’t know how to do it, in the sense that I could not consciously relate the number of degrees to turn the steering wheel to the curvature of the lane I needed to stay in. My eyes and muscles just accomplish it somehow. I did worry a little that it was dangerous to think about this, and that I might end up like the centipede who stopped to think about exactly how he walked, and could never walk again.
Fortunately, this did not happen.
I stopped to eat lunch Monday at a rest stop in Delaware, specifically the Biden Welcoming Center. I wonder whether it’s had that name for years, or recently acquired it after our country’s most famous Delawarean won the presidential election.
By contrast, when I passed through a curving tunnel under Baltimore on Friday, moving at forty or so m.p.h., I was able to steer reliably, and remain in the proper lane, not sending the car into the side of the tunnel, or into the other lane. I reflected, then, and at other points during the trip, that I don’t know how to do it, in the sense that I could not consciously relate the number of degrees to turn the steering wheel to the curvature of the lane I needed to stay in. My eyes and muscles just accomplish it somehow. I did worry a little that it was dangerous to think about this, and that I might end up like the centipede who stopped to think about exactly how he walked, and could never walk again.
Fortunately, this did not happen.
I stopped to eat lunch Monday at a rest stop in Delaware, specifically the Biden Welcoming Center. I wonder whether it’s had that name for years, or recently acquired it after our country’s most famous Delawarean won the presidential election.
