Most remember their first car. Me too. Many other people my age began with an old Volvo Amazon, but I wanted something else. The 18th birthday came and went without I took driver’s license or acquired car. I was fully occupied with being a punk who would rather drink beer and boose in the back of other people’s cars. Seen in retrospect, I wasted away many years unnecessarily. by Anders Hjelm.
The turning point came when my 22th birthday was approaching. A couple of buddies thought we would go one week to Mallorca and partying.
I thought it sounded like a good idea, contacted the bank and got a loan of 5,000 (600 dollar) – that would be dandy on.
Completely insane. Fortunately, I bethought me for any reason and thought, if not a driver’s license would be better.
Driving practice in ol´american barges .
Contacted a driving school in Smederjebacken which offered intensive training for a week and got a place a month later. That much practice driving it was not, about 70 miles in friend’s Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and about the same amount in another friends Valiant.
At the end of March 1987 I drove the seven miles to Smedjebacken where I shared apartment and driving instructors with a Stockholmer who also had a driving license need. The week passed quickly with theory books, safety, driving on slippery surfaces, the pull position, traffic, urban and highway driving in a glorious mess. 
Jet easy
Driver training was done in a red, four-door Volkswagen Jetta of the latest model year.
Everything went surprisingly easy, however, had the Stockholm stomper major problems with most things, but he had on the other hand never sat in a car, raised by the underground.
According to the rules we would, after completion of the training, wait a week before doing the driving test. A nervous period took place at home with theory books before it was time to take the train to Ludvika and do write-ups and drive-on an overcast Tuesday morning in April.
In need of a cig.
In the sports hall in Ludvika we conducted the theory test.
There was a conference room in the basement where I would be tested together with a dozen other driving license aspirants.
My habit from different tests in high school, I submitted answers first of all to go out and smoke and were thereby informed that I would have to wait to the last with the driving test. It was a long and nervous wait.
Furniture kickers
45 minutes later I learned that I had passed the theory and the driving test began. After half an hour, the first and then the one after the other came back to the sport hall’s cafeteria. Stockholm cursed hot. One kicked the furniture around but most laughed out loud and you knew who toothed driving test and which ones fared. I sat quietly, drank coffee and smoked.
One gallon of coffee
After two packets John Silver and one gallon of coffee it was my turn to sit behind the wheel. When I closed the car door for me appeared a peace I had never felt before. The nervousness was blown away and I steered away the Jetta a couple mil along the national road towards Borlänge before I turned and took a turn through the center of Ludvika.
Slow cruise in town.
The entire time I sat and glanced at the surveyor’s writing table where my driver’s license sat jammed. When we stepped out of the car after stopping driving test said the man who sat next:
– You drive good. A bit too fast on the highway and a little too slowly in town, but you’re running good. Continue like this.
Drove that Chevy for 48 hours
After an uninteresting train ride back to Lindesberg, Jokke, a friend waited at the train station with an angry yellow ’66 Chevy II station wagon.
– Here, take the car. I know how eager you are to drive when you have a license, he said.
And drove I sure did. I was not out of the car in two days other than to refuel and eat.
No Amazon
Eleven months later, I had worked and saved up so much that I could get my first car and as I said, it would not be a Volvo Amazon.
To be continued. . . .
