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sWeet sixteen
neighborhood hill (!) for the first lesson. This was not an obvious recipe for success, unless, of course, you want your totally inexperienced sister to freeze up as a consequence of the inexorable gravitational pull with which she had to contend as she rolled uncontrollably backward and then finally stopped the motion by using a Scarsdale-owned streetlight as a brake. Both Rachel’s confidence in Peter, which always had its own fragility, and the lamppost were totaled, but fortunately, after days of negotiation with the Village, I got it to accept a damage valuation of $990, which, miraculously, made it wholly covered by Scarsdale’s insur- ance policy. And, somehow, the Legend escaped any really serious bruise.
Cars were always a source of merriment as the kids grew up. In addition to the Acura-meets-lamppost adventure, we had Rachel having some other minor accident; David sideswiping a neighbor’s car while giving a ride to the daughter of another of our neighbors, the Lukes (see “The Monstrosity,” in this chapter), an event that, for reasons that will become clear, I actually found amusing (see “The Monstrosity” once again); and Daniel caught speeding at fifty miles per hour on the Post Road by a Scarsdale policeman who was nice enough not only not to ticket him but also nice enough to escort him home. Unfortunately, the speeding occurred at 2:00 a.m., so that’s just a bit before the time at which, to Dan’s humiliation, the officer rang our front door, woke us up, posited the transgressor in the safety of our front hall, and handed us the keys so that we would be able to retrieve the vehicle. (Somehow, Daniel managed to maintain a smile throughout this adventure.)
More unfortunately, we had the opportunity to meet that same policeman only two weeks later! It seems that Rachel, who was sleeping over, we thought, had been picked up walking on the same Post Road at, guess what, 2:00 a.m., by guess who, who had also been kind enough to escort her home at that hour, and who, understandably, rang the front doorbell to alert us to the fact that our girl had become quite a somnam- bulist. Some joked that it was a good thing that Rachel was not out walking on the Post Road when Daniel was out speeding on it. I would add that the policeman in question was not the same one who had come to our door one night to let us know that neighbors were complaining
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