It's 6:45 AM, on August 15th, 2001. I'm 8th in line in front of the Driver's License Bureau on 36th St. North. I'm the only one without a felony conviction. I'm also the only one in the line who didn't bum a cigarette off my mom. In my left hand I clutch a dog-eared copy of Madame Bovary by Flaubert. My father is standing next to me, wearing a coat and tie. His apparel is old enough to get a driver's license too. I want to cry.
             At 8:00 AM, three extremely large uniformed Driver's Bureau employees,
             'security guard wannabees,' snickered an anonymous voice from the back of the line, opened the door. Like sheep headed toward slaughter, or at least a bad shearing, we filed inside and signed up for our driving times. Like a game show contestant with a parting gift, I received an appointment with, in my opinion, the greatest American, ever.
             At eleven o'clock AM we returned to the bureau and took a seat. It was but 20 minutes later that I met a surely great man, Mr. Earl Sterner. To me, he was 'sir.' This is a man in the last 25 years who had smiled once, and that was after a dangerous escapade involving an uphill parking job gone bad. I remembered which way the wheels were supposed to turn about a block after I had finished.
             My dad was waiting for me at the door of the bureau when I returned. Most tests take 20 minutes. I came back in ten. If even that. My dad knew that I had failed the test. He was wondering if was not too late to send me to a convent in Wisconsin. Preferably one with Internet access. Well, I showed him. I gave him a big smile, Earl smiled back for the second time in 25 years. It was such a shock to his system that his right side cramped up and he crumpled to the pavement. Despite his peculiarities, I believe him to be a great American. He was a factor in my most important right of passage. Getting street
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