At a time when most teenagers are learning to drive, my Italian parents thought it was more important that I learn to make lasagna. We were a family of pedestrians that went as far back as my grandparents. But I was hopefully about to break tradition as I sit in the Ferrari Driving school car waiting for my road test to begin.

With my learners permit folded neatly in my NY Mets' jacket pocket, I peer out the windshield at the five cars waiting their turn ahead of me parked along side the 31st Street Con Edison Plant. And I find myself thinking about the women in my family.

Having settled in Astoria, my Grandparents, and then parents, always relied on mass transit. They learned to coordinate their lives around the Queens's bus and train schedules. I had heard the story of how Grandma never let her lack of English, or driving, stop her from doing for the family. When she needed to travel by train from our house in Astoria to Manhattan, Grandma would take a piece of yarn and tie a knot for each stop along the route. Once on the train, Grandma would use the yarn as makeshift rosary beads; moving her fingers from knot to knot as the train pulled in and out of the stations; Astoria Boulevard….Broadway….Queens Borough Plaza…..57th Street. Then, upon reaching the final knot, Grandma knew to get off the train.

As I continue to wait for the four cars ahead of me to take their turns, I think of Mom’s voice from that morning. “I said a Novena to the Virgin Mother for you today.” I knew she was doing for me what she could, just as she always had.

Every Saturday growing up, Mom would push our flimsy 2 wheeled shopping cart from our house near Astoria Park up the ten blocks to 31st Street to do the weekly food shopping. Filling the cart with various foods purchased from Rosario’s Italian Deli, Top Tomato Produce and the Ditmars Butcher, she would then pull the cumbersome heavy cart the ten blocks back home. And Mom never complained. Mom was always the one to take my sisters and me to buy clothes or school supplies on Steinway Street; to doctor appointments in Manhattan; to weekend trips at Uncle Mario’s house in New Jersey. And always by train, or bus or both. And Mom never complained.

As I watch the amount of cars in front of me decrease, my nervous habits increase. Three cars ahead and I’m twirling my hair, two cars ahead and I’m bouncing my legs, one at a time and then together. Until suddenly the car shifts and a large instructor plops down beside me.

I watch in silence as she scribbles on her blue ink speckled coffee stained clipboard that rests on her large thighs. She stops scribbling only long enough to command me to "Begin."

With a deep inhale, I adjust my mirrors, check my seat belt, shift the car into drive, and then exhale. My hands are locked at the appropriate ten and two o'clock positions around the steering wheel as I drive to the corner. With each point of her pen, I follow the instructor's directions to "turn right here", "turn left there", "make a broken U turn here"; until she finally commands me to "parallel Park behind the white van". Upon completion of each task, she scribbles her comments onto her trusty clipboard. Then, with one last point of her pen, she commands me to "pull over", which I do, as I find myself back along side the Con Edison Plant.

"This is only a temporary, your permanent license will be mailed to you. ", the instructor casually stated as she handed me the yellow slip of paper.

And with those thirteen words, I knew that my Mom would never have to walk those twenty blocks again.