Before The Beginning

Amazing though it may seem to those who know me, there really was a time that I did not drive. Growing up in Chicago, there was no real need to learn how to drive, to own a car, to get a license, and I didn't do any of those things, at least, not until They Made Me.
The first They was the Chicago Public School System. For reasons unclear, given that Chicago was a city with a permanent traffic problem, among requirements for graduation from high school was the taking of Driving Class. Now while most 15-year-olds were positively drooling at the prospect of obtaining a driver's license, I could have cared less. I had less than no interest in driving, viewing everything that was not me and whatever car I would be piloting as a Hazard To Navigation. Pedestrians, parked cars, MOVING CARS, light poles, hidden dogs, potholes-- the roads were full of obstacles and dangers and I wanted no part of them. The subway, busses, other people who knew how to drive, taxis-- what did I need a driver's license for?
So I took their course, but refused to get a license. I think I had to get a learning permit, because you were required to take a drive with an instructor at the end of the course-- madness, if you ask me, but it wasn't a course you could fail, if you did all the work and everything they asked you to, including watching all the horrible movies (a classic involved an unmarried pregnant girl reaching over to get a match to light a cigarette and causing a horrific accident-- all the Big No-Nos at once! A masterpiece of the genre!
So I took their course, but I wouldn't get a license and in due time, the permit expired and I was safe from all those Road Hazards.
For a while.
Several years later though, a force stronger than the Chicago Board of Education beat me down-- my fiance said that I had to get a driver's license before we got married because she "wasn't going to spend the rest of her life chauffeuring me around." These words would come back to haunt her...
I don't remember the details, but whichever driving test-giver was supposed to be watching me drive for the test must have been asleep, or else simply assumed that anyone my age (21) must know how to drive and had been driving for years. I passed on the first try, largely, I still believe, owing to the fact that I didn't hit any people, moving vehicles, parked cars, or stray dogs. I had my license, and the wedding was on.
This then, was two beginnings. It marked the start of Michael The Driver and Michael The Married Person. More (on the former) anon.