Stories from my Father - Driving tests

My father had dementia for almost 15 years before he passed away in 2015. I am trying to pen down his life stories as he told me during the times when it was my turn to sit with him. I hope I can still remember them.

So, we were talking about driving and I asked if he feels that he can still drive. He was in the late 70s at the time we had this conversation. Any other men in reasonably good health would still be able to drive, but my father had dementia at the time of our talk. So ...

The conversation got around to how he started learning how to drive. I don’t know how old he was at that time, I forgot to ask. There was no driving school at that time where one would go to learn driving. He had asked a school teacher who owned a car to teach him. And, he was proud to say that he learned quite fast. Now, my father was known to be a proud person and like to tell me of his proud moments. Oh well ...

Anyway ... by the time he knew how to drive, he still hadn’t got a valid driving license.

Obtaining a driving license had another interesting requirement. To test for a driving license, you have to be a car-owner. It must be true since that was what he told me. Well, he bought the car from the school teacher who taught him to drive. RM600 and paid cash for it. That was more than 60 years ago and that RM600 is a huge sum of money. I didn’t ask where he got the cash from, or if his father gave him the money. Maybe I should have.

With the car-ownership certificate, he had no problem scheduling a date for the test, and easily passed it .

He had two friends who wanted to sit for the driving test as well but they did not own a car, so their tests were deferred until they can show proof that the each owned a car. And that was when my father came up with this clever idea.

He is willing to temporarily transfer the car-ownership to his friends to enable them to take their driving tests. After the test, the certificate will be transferred to his name again. His friends had to pay him some money for this arrangement. There was no fear of his friends driving off with his car because the car was never out of his hands. He drove them to the test centre on the day of the test, waited for them to finish and drove back after it. Another proud moment for him, how he managed to make some money off his friends, so he told me ....

Stories from my Father

 I need a place to pen down stories that my father shared with me of his early life.  I will temporarily use this space to record them even though most of my post in this blog are about tatting.

My father had dementia for almost 15 years before he passed away in 2015.  I took turns with my other siblings to sit with him.  During some of those time, I would ask about his early life and this record are what he told me.  I don't how much it is true but I enjoyed listening to them.

The stories are short are do not come in any chronological order.  I will post the first story after this post.

Thank you for taking time to read this and I hope you'll enjoy the coming stories.

Tatting project Updates.

 No new projects started since the completion of Harmony Tat-along, here is an update of a couple of WIPs

Jan Stawasz Doily 1, from Tatting Patterns and Theory.

I am still doing the individual motifs of Round 5, and there are six more to go. Upon completion of Rd 5, this doily will be about 28cm wide; still a long way to go to complete.

Thread is Coats Mercer size 40.

This square mat is my own design, made up of nine motifs joined together with four filler motifs.

Thread used is Olympus Special Gold Label in two shades, red and light variegated red.

Finished size is 23cm square.