Tunesday : Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go

(Michael, G) performed by Wham!

Jitterbug
Jitterbug
Jitterbug
Jitterbug

You put the boom boom into my heart
You send my soul sky high when your lovin' starts
Jitterbug into my brain
Goes a bang bang bang 'til my feet do the same

But something's bugging you, something ain't right
My best friend told me what you did last night
Left me sleepin' in my bed, I was dreaming
But I should have been with you instead

Wake me up before you go go
Don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo
Wake me up before you go go
I don't want to miss it when you hit that high

Wake me up before you go go
'Cause I'm not plannin' on going solo
Wake me up before you go go
Take me dancing tonight
I wanna hit that high, yeah, yeah

You take the gray skies out of my way
You make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day
Turned a bright spark into a flame
My beats per minute never been the same

'Cause you're my lady, I'm your fool
It makes me crazy when you act so cruel
Come on baby, let's not fight
We'll go dancing, everything will be all right

Wake me up before you go go
Don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo
Wake me up before you go go
I don't want to miss it when you hit that high

Wake me up before you go go
'Cause I'm not plannin' on going solo
Wake me up before you go go
Take me dancing tonight
I wanna hit that high, yeah, yeah yeah, baby

Jitterbug
Jitterbug

Cuddle up, baby, move in tight
We'll go dancing tomorrow night
It's cold out there but it's warm in bed
They can dance, we'll stay home instead

Jitterbug

Wake me up before you go go
Don't leave me hanging on like a yo yo
Wake me up before you go go
I don't want to miss it when you hit that high

Wake me up before you go go
'Cause I'm not plannin' on going solo
Wake me up before you go go
Take me dancing tonight

Wake me up before you go go
Don't you dare to leave me hanging
Wake me up before you go go
I don't want to miss it when you hit that high

Wake me up before you go go
'Cause I'm not plannin' on going solo
Wake me up before you go go
Take me dancing tonight
Yeah yeah

It's finally, really, beginning to feel like spring outside, and as it does every year, this weather reminds me of being young and driving around with a bunch of friends, the windows down, singing along with our favourite songs. In particular, I remember listening to this song, cranking it up when it came on my ancient am radio (was it in mono?), cruising the strip in my classic car, feeling the energy that comes from knowing that winter is finally past -- with my friends riding along, I felt connected to people, and with the warm air blowing in the windows, I felt reconnected to the world outside -- and this energy of hope and renewal is such a powerful feeling that I honestly do feel sorry for people who don't have brutal winters to recover from; a person couldn't possibly feel this high without having lived through the low. This week, I feel like talking about my teenaged driving experiences, so let's go-go.

When we first moved to Lethbridge, I was surprised to learn that kids could get their learner's permits at fourteen (I assume this has something to do with rural kids needing to drive earlier to help out on the farm?), and as I was nearly fifteen when we moved, I went down and got myself a license. What I didn't count on was the fact that neither of my parents was willing to allow me to drive, so that was a useless advantage to have. As a sidenote: from the driver's handbook, I discovered that any fourteen-year-old with a learner's permit was legally allowed to drive a gas-powered moped on city streets, and since my parents owned a moped that nobody drove anymore, I asked if I could use it. This idea frightened my parents, and my Dad gruffly tested me to see if I knew the hand signals for turning (despite the bike having proper blinkers), and when I got offended and sassy, he told me I didn't have the maturity to handle the responsibility. The next thing I knew, the moped was sold. Smooth.

So, as happens everywhere else in Canada, neither of my parents took me driving until after I turned sixteen. Dad did try to be patient with me, but just like the total failure of him trying to teach me to ride a bike when I was little, I couldn't handle him as a teacher, and we only went out a couple of times; very stressful for us both; Mum never even tried to take me out. Since my birthday is in December, I assumed that the lessons would start up again after the winter ended, but Dad surprised me in February by saying that he had signed me up for Driver's Ed. Lethbridge has chinooks and doesn't stay snow-covered all winter, and as I remember it, there wasn't snow when I was learning to drive, so this isn't as weird as it may sound. (But don't think this discredits what I said earlier about brutal winters: Lethbridge could get stuck in deep-freeze temperatures, even without snow.)

My instructor was a very laid back, youngish guy. There was nothing particularly impressive about the house we lived in, but when he picked me up for my first lesson and made small talk and found out that my Dad was the GM of the Canada Packers plants, he assumed that we were rich (ha!), and as he mused about what kind of car my parents might buy me one day (I did let him know that they had bought my older brother a classic Mustang), I never corrected his assumptions -- it was nice to have someone think I was a princess, even if I definitely wasn't. We just drove around talking -- this was certainly not like being taught, totally stress-free -- and when my lessons were almost done, the instructor said that his own evaluation was coming up, and as I was his best student, he asked if his evaluator from the province could come along on my driver's exam. This flustered me a bit, but since it also flattered me, I agreed. On the day of my exam, I had to be dropped off at the licensing center, I got into the training car -- my instructor beside me, his evaluator in the back -- and he told me to pull out of the parking spot. As they were chatting among themselves, I started to reverse, and suddenly, my instructor stomped on his brake: he looked at me with huge, unbelieving eyes and said that I had nearly hit another car in the lot. It was at that point that I realised that my instructor had always picked me up in front of my house, and other than parallel parking between pylons, I had spent zero minutes in reverse. I had never pulled back out of a parking spot before. I had failed my exam before it even started. This was so humiliating at the time, but it was a good story to tell my girls as they went to get their own driver's licenses: I didn't pass the test the first time, so no shame if they didn't either (although, at the time, all I felt was shame), but happily, they both passed the first try. As for me, my instructor picked me up again the next day, we drove around like nothing had happened, and at the end, I had my license. 

And since I had my license, I expected to be allowed to drive -- but that was dodgy: exactly like with the moped the year before, just because the government of Alberta said that I was legally allowed to do something didn't mean my parents would let me. I remember begging my parents to let me drive over to my friend Cindy's house one evening and my Dad said that there was too much black ice. I spouted some techniques that I had read about for dealing with icy conditions, and to my surprise, he said okay, but told me to take his truck because it had four wheel drive. Sweet! The drive over to Cindy's was unremarkable, but on the way home, I hit so much ice that I was terrified: I was crawling along, but even so, I swerved all over the road, fish-tailing around every corner, sliding straight through every neighbourhood stop sign; happily I had the road to myself as everyone else had the sense to stay indoors. I suspect Dad was trying to teach me a lesson by giving me the truck -- because there's no way the car would have been that unstable -- but it was a good lesson either way.

When the spring came, I began to wonder if my parents actually would be getting me a car. I did understand that the Mustang they gave Ken was a bribe of sorts (not that it worked; he was gone by now, car and all), and just as they had given both of my brothers minibikes when we lived in Stouffville (I've never even been on one), I wasn't confident that a penis wasn't required to own and operate motorised vehicles at our home. Dad was always buying vehicles throughout my childhood -- fixing them up and flipping them -- so a new car in the garage didn't necessarily mean anything for me. I remember around this time he brought home an old truck: it was turquoise (my favourite colour, as my Dad would have known) and Dad delighted in showing me that it was a "3 on the tree" and I thought everything about it was just so cool: I wanted that truck to be for me, so badly, but the next thing I knew, it was gone. By the summer, I had accepted that I would just be driving their car around (which my parents were very generous with; I didn't actually need a car of my own), but one day my Dad brought home a K-car and said that I could drive it. As I was taking summer school (to get ahead on my grade twelve courseload), I loved bombing over there and back in what I thought was a coolly modern ride (gawd, is anything more ugly-eighties than a K-car in retrospect? Maybe just this music video?), and I hoped that it would officially be mine soon enough. But after a couple of weeks, Dad took it back: he explained that it had been the company car of someone he had had to fire, and upon reflection, he didn't think it looked good for me to be driving it; d'ya think?

Just as school was starting up again, Dad brought home a new project car and he and Kyler restored it in the garage, never a word spoken to me about it. Within a few weeks, it was tuned and painted, and my Dad proudly handed me the keys to my first car: a 1964 Dodge Polara, and I loved that vehicle. Dad said that he had been eyeballing that car -- where it was sitting abandoned underneath some residential tree that was shedding layers and layers of sticky sap onto it -- for over a year, and although the owner had tried to protest that it was worth so much more than whatever it was that Dad offered him, the right deal was made and all the car had really needed was a decent paint job. One might think that I would have been consulted as to paint colour, but that's not Dad's way: it had originally been a white car, so he chose an "arctic white" for the restoration: white with just the slightest hint of green to it, and I thought it was the most beautiful car I had ever seen; that's the same car as in the picture at the top. This was apparently considered a "compact" car at the time, and although it was as solid as a tank (which I assume was its greatest appeal to Dad), it drove like a new car. It had power steering and brakes; a red leather (vinyl?) interior that was like rolling along on twin couches, front and back; what Dad called a "hardtop convertible" (which simply means that there was no dividing bar between the front and rear windows, as can be seen above); I adored the birdwing chrome down the sides; and it had a push-button transmission. Everything about this car was unique and gorgeous and solid and I loved loved loved it. This is the car that comes to mind when spring returns every year; this is the car that I could fit a whole gang of friends into; this car was freedom and youth and carefree evenings cruising the strip with my besties, turning up Wham if they came onto the tinny radio, the sound not mattering at all as we were belting out the lyrics louder than George Michael ever did. I named her Honnie and Ken gave me a keychain with her name engraved on it for Christmas that year. Probably the best thing he ever gave me.

And yet...when the end of the school year was approaching and my Mum asked me what special gift they could get me for graduation, I said, "Maybe a smaller car?" It's hard to think back now and realise that I didn't have Honnie for even a year before I wanted something more compact, but with university looming and me foreseeing a stricter gas budget in my future (which is such baloney, the price of gas was close to nothing at the time), I had the nerve to make that request. Dad never commented one way or the other, but I probably hurt his feelings. As an aside, by now my little brother Kyler had turned sixteen, and he was given...a classic Mustang. If I had ever been given a Mustang, I'd still have it today.

So, before grad, Dad brought home a 1982 Honda Civic (this was 1985, so that was a pretty new car), and as it was a standard, he had to finally bite the bullet and commit to teaching me to drive something. I was a really confident driver by now (probably overconfident), and although learning to stop and start on a hill was pretty frustrating for me, Dad was very patient, and within a few hours, I was set free. And I loved that car, too. It was sporty and silver with "Honda" written in black letters across the bottom of both sides: I've never seen another like it, and as I can't find an image online, it must have been custom. My friends were impressed that I could drive a stick now, and although it held fewer of these friends, that was okay, too: I had gotten plenty tired of people wanting rides home from school just because I had room for them. Mum told me quite a bit later that they had nearly bought me a convertible MG, but decided that I wouldn't want a two-seater because I was always driving everyone around. Man, if I had ever been given a convertible MG, I'd still have it today.

So, yeah, in the end I acted like a princess -- I want a car! I love this car! Gimme a different car! -- but probably not in the way my driving instructor had anticipated (yet, maybe worse). I had that Honda -- named Stanley -- until I moved to Edmonton and years beyond; Dave and I drove it into the ground and eventually had it towed away for scrap. Driving is no special treat for me today, but I certainly remember the early years: rolling all the windows down and letting in the warm wintermelt smells; surrounded by the friends who were closer than siblings to me; laughing and singing and snapping our fingers after every jitterbug; driving countless, looping kilometers and never leaving the city. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

You put the boom boom into my heart
You send my soul sky high when your lovin' starts
Jitterbug into my brain
Goes a bang bang bang 'til my feet do the same