I took Driver's Ed in the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Lane because Gordon did not offer Driver's Ed. All the instructors were bustout coaches. For my first road test I ended up with Stu Menaker.

Stu was an interesting guy. He had played on a great high school basketball at Sullivan with Ira Berkow. He coached a close friend of mine on the girl's basketball team at Schurz. I think he was eventually forced out after being accused of hitting a player in the head. I also heard a story that he was diagnosed with a terminal disease and spent all his retirement money before they told him the good news that there had been a mistake in the test results.

So for the road test it was Stu along with me and a cute black girl named Peggy who was from some school on the West side. Peggy drove first and did pretty well. It was uneventful.

Then it was my turn. I drove that Buick like a motherfucker. Went on the Kennedy and everything. No problem. Then Stu started directing me down side streets in Albany Park. He hopped out of the car and told me to parallel park. He went up to a house where a woman answered the door and kissed him. I had never parallel parked before. The space was big but I was having trouble. When I reset to try for about the fourth time I looked at the house and Stu and his fucking girlfriend were up there on the porch laughing their asses off. Even Peggy was giggling. Fuck me!

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I used to brag about my balance. I could trip or even slip but I never hit the ground. Well all of that changed about 5 years ago. I was leaving an office building in the west suburbs in December. While walking to the car with a bag in 1 hand and papers in the other I slipped on black ice and like you would see on a movie all of the papers flew in the air and I did too. I landed hard on my ass. Tried to get up and fell 2 more times. Of course a small group of people saw me. I was beyond embarrassed.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

On a high school date I burned my nose with a car lighter. It was an old school one, so it left rings on my nose.

One time, this guy who purported to be a horse expert tricked some friends and me into betting this longshot horse, and the horse actually died before the race ended.

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My drivers ed was a lot less interesting than yours. I did have a coach for my instructor, however. I can’t remember his name. I think it was Coach Miller. We drove a 1980 Chevy Citation. Looking back, that was pretty fucking embarrassing.

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We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.- Eric Hoffer

I got my driver's license despite literally never driving until I took my driver's ed test. Autrey Calloway was one of the old members of Stroger's machine and I had known him since I was 10. He just so happened to be the driver's ed teacher at Simeon. He had me drive to Jewel a few blocks away and park in the lot and he passed me. As long as I didn't crash I would have passed. I learned how to drive when I bought my first car a few months later.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

My drivers ed guy was an NIU PE instructor who complained about what a money pot the football program was.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

My daughter is learning to drive. She asked my how many hours I drive after I took drivers ed because she has to drive a 100 or something and was shocked when I told her that I drove 15 minutes or so outside of drivers Ed. Lost my permit right after taking the class and my mom wouldn’t let me practice without one. Passed the test and was driving the old family beater. How I didn’t kill someone is beyond me. How I’ll survive teaching my daughter to drive is beyond me too.

Like those of you who have already posted, I took driver's ed back in the day when coaches were the "instructors". One guy had me drive to a donut shop (at least he bought for us all) while we argued football, and the other was a guy who was busy lining up the cuties.

Oddly the second guy was still there when my oldest had his turn.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Never took drivers ed.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Great Drivers ED thread!

When I took my test it was a friend's girlfriend who took me and luckily her uncle worked there. I would have failed for not backing around a corner correctly but he said "as long as you dont hit anything you pass"

damn is stroger still around these days?

looked it up, he passed 10 years ago. Didnt he have a son? Any of his kids go into politics?

They all moved to New Mexico and became bakers.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

i wonder why he never ran for mayor. was it during daley's time?

When my wife and I got married we did so at a golf club. We were supposed to have the 18th green for our ceremony.
Anyhow the lady running the place was kind of a bitch. She was clearly drunk when we went to go check the place out on a Sunday morning. Stunk of booze. Whatever man no big deal. The day before the wedding at the rehearsal she said well we cant do it on the green its gonna be on the patio. We're all wtf we have an agreement for the green and she screamed at my wife I can just cancel this now if you dont like it.
At the reception at the club she screams at my wife for (and ingest that this is kinda legit I guess) one of our guests got caught smoking a one hitter in the locker room. But she yelled at her WHAT KIND OF PERSON ARE YOU like she was the one who did it.
The bartender disappeared for like 30 minutes. We paid for all night (after ceremony was like 3pm) until midnight open bar and I'll tell ya that shit wasn't cheap. So my best man walked behind the bar and opened beers and made drinks for the guests while the guy was Mia. The lady told my wife she could have her arrested for that. The tab at the end of the night was 900 more than we agreed upon.

So fast forward three years. I'm at wildfire meeting a few pals. And guess who's tending bar... that bartender from my wedding. He recognized me first. Hey man I tended bar at your wedding. Me: oh yeah dude I remember you. How'd your experience go he asks. I said yeah it was kinda all right man but that lady running the place was kind of a bitch.

He says, yeah man, but that's my mom. Anyway here's your beer.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

He was a great guy. His son Todd was the 8th Ward alderman at one point but he was a fucking idiot and awful politician.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Never would have happened at Bushwood

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

I bought a new surge protector/power strip for my dorm room. I plug my fridge, stereo, etc into it. NONE of them are working. I’m bitching and bitching that I just wasted $10 and a trip to Walmart. Well, I had the strip plugged into itself.

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-- source

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

That was an actual help desk call that I was a witness to. The guy had some Becks in his mini-fridge.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

I know I took driver's' ed my sophomore year at ETHS. Other than that I have zero recollection about both it and the road test. You all must still be in your early 20s to be able to remember such minutiae.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Are you kidding? That shit was traumatic.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

_________________

Overseas in the Navy traveling by train through France with a buddy in 1985 - way before cell phones, apps, etc.

A couple of seats ahead of us are two attractive brunette girls all dolled up in Paris couture.

My buddy pulls out his English/French translation book and starts laying down a cringeworthy international pick up speech which included; "Le Train-o, Voolay-Voo Beautiful, Mine Cherry, etc."

The train car went awkwardly silent, both girls giggled and one replied; "Why don't you just speak English? We are both American and speak it perfectly."

I never heard so much laughter in such an enclosed space before.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

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Elections have consequences.

Not as embarrassing as dumb but I was really late for something and walking around my house looking for my cell phone. I was really pitching a fit and getting upset. Until the person I was talking to on my cell phone clued me in.

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Elections have consequences.

Yeah.. I’ve done that. Terrible.

My drivers Ed memories are very fuzzy. I don’t remember how many days it was, how many people, how long a class. Nothing much beyond I took it in summer and never practicing. But I didn’t have the trauma that JORR had.

Took Driver's Ed in the summer as well. Nothing like JORR's experience - thank God. It was pretty chill, actually.

Mostly, we got a lot of highway windshield time and ran a ton of errands for the instructor. Water softener pellets in Ottawa, Big bag of dry dog food in Peru, Bags of top soil in Morris, etc. Stuff like that.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

The stories of the other drivers in the car during drivers ed were more exciting than mine, but my highlight was driving down some suburban 25 mph side street and encountering a pretty big sized branch in the street in front of me. Thinking that swerving into the completely unoccupied other side of the street was too dangerous, I just ran the fucking thing over causing a large amount of crunches. We switched drivers right after that while the teacher checked for damages.

Yeah, I recall almost nothing about it too. Took it at Taft. Class was in a trailer. Dodge Omnis. One practice drive was on Mannheim, one we went to Tile Outlet on Fullerton. One cute redhead. I have a pretty good memory for detail, I don't remember anything else.

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost