Perfectly painless parallel parking

My grandmother Effie Mae with her surviving children,
Christmas 1946. Front row (l to r) Blanche, Grandmother Damon,
Marjorie and Irene. Rear (l to r) Lloyd (my dad), Deward,
Howard and Norris.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen people struggling with parallel parking downtown, especially on the block of East Front between Park and Watchung avenues.

Oftentimes they end up backing in at an awkward angle and obstructing the flow of traffic in one or even both directions while making their attempt.

Sad, because it's really not that difficult to do it perfectly.

Let me share with you how my Aunt Irene taught me to parallel park perfectly in one easy lesson.

Aunt Irene (I never dreamed of calling her anything else) was an older sister of my father and lived in a tiny brick house about a half mile from us that had been a stagecoach stop in the 19th century to change horses on the route between Buffalo and Pittsburgh.

Irene's husband, Uncle Ben, was a very quiet man who worked at the local sawmill.

Aunt Irene was sociable and independent-minded (she had come of age in the 1920s and learned to drive on her father's Model A).

She earned her own money by wallpapering various rooms for people, transporting all her papers and tools (except for a stepladder, which the client was expected to provide) in her sedan.

She had been a Ford girl all her life and rather disdained my father's Dodge sedan.

But she was quite frank about her Ford's shortcomings. She had a manual choke (winters in the Buffalo area are quite frigid) installed on her 1955 Fairlane so it would start in zero degree weather and jokingly referred to "Ford" as an acronym for Fix. Or. Repair. Daily.

The year was 1956 and I was preparing for my NY drivers license test.

In those days there were no driving schools or driver ed classes; you learned with a family member or perhaps an older sibling or cousin who already had a license.

Aunt Irene had agreed that I could take the test with her Fairlane.

My father, whom you might have expected to pitch in, had left the family a few years before and was essentially unavailable.

So Aunt Irene and I practiced on country roads until I was quite comfortable.

However, she knew that one of the tasks I would have to complete successfully was parallel parking.

So one day shortly before the fateful day, we drove into the village of Fredonia which actually had some parallel parking marked off with painted lines.

"Ok," she said, "watch this."

"The trick is to pull up as close as possible and perfectly parallel to the car you are going to park behind."

"Line your car up even with the front of that car."

I looked out my window. We were close indeed. It seemed the door handles of the two cars were only a couple of inches apart.

"Then put it in reverse. You can look over your shoulder for the test, but I usually don't bother (she was a bit ballsy too)."

"Back up slowly until your front wheels are even with the other car's rear wheels and then give the steering wheel a hard crank to the right as you continue to ease backward."

"You will begin to slide into the parking space."

"As you clear the other car's rear bumper cut the wheel hard to the left and watch through the rear view mirror not to bump the car behind you."

"You will ease in behind the car in front of you and should be perfectly parallel to the curb."

"That's all there is to it, and you should be just six inches from the curb, which is what the test requires."

"Ok, now you try it."

We switched seats and I drove around the block returning to the same space.

Then she talked me through each maneuver.

Though I was very nervous I did get in the space, but Aunt Irene was not satisfied.

"We'll do it a couple more times until you're really comfortable."

On the third try, I felt like a pro and aced it to her satisfaction.

A few days later, we drove into town once more -- this time to take the REAL test, which I passed with flying colors, thanks to Aunt Irene.

The only additional thing I would suggest for today's driver is to put your blinkers on when starting the maneuver as a matter of courtesy so that other folks can have some idea of what you're up to.

Maybe some day I'll tell you about Aunt Irene's made-from-scratch lemon meringue pies, which were to die for.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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