The Driveway From Hell...

The Driveway from Hell

I only guarantee a minimum of 10% truth per column. But today's column is all true, none of the characters have been changed despite years of trying.

My mother and step-father live in a house on West Neck Road that has the worst driveway on the eastern seaboard. It was designed by an engineer with a degree from the Helen Keller School of Engineering. He had to be blind or drunk, possibly both. Going down the driveway puts you at a 40 degree incline at least. It only takes a moment to get down, but it can take days to get up.

If you’re driving, you have to race to the top and shoot halfway out onto West Neck Road causing oncoming traffic to slam on their brakes. In the summer, because it’s busy, you send someone up first who stands in the middle of the road to stop traffic and gives you the signal to gun it and get up that hill.

My parents bid farewell to company several times each visit. They wave good-bye on the back porch and watch the company go up the hill. The wave again when they roll back down. Mother shouts her instruction to gun it and waves good-bye again. But they never gun it enough, so soon she waves hello again as they roll back down for the third time. The third time is usually the charm. The driver now knows he must use “the Force” to get up this friggin’ hill. He grips the steering wheels, downshifts all the way, eyes forward and up to the top and halfway into the street. There, that wasn’t so bad now was it?

Backseat passengers are usually advised to walk to the top of the driveway and let the car get out first before they get in, otherwise the rear-end of the car whams against the big hump right at the top. This hump has a documented history of removing oil pans and mufflers. As a matter of fact, in the Midas Muffler disclaimer, it reads, "This warranty is null and void if you ever visit Beaudry's."

In winter, my folks don’t even try to escape in the car. They climb to the top clutching the posts that flank the driveway, one post at a time till they make it to the summit, where I pick them up. The hump is steeper than the rest of the hill. On one very cold morning, mother climbed up the driveway and practically hurled herself over the hump and heaved herself into my van, clutching the door and seat so she wouldn't fall back down the driveway.

“(pant)...Thank God there wasn’t (pant)... a hardware store on the way up that (really bad word) driveway, (pant)... or I would’ve bought a knife (pant).. and stabbed myself!”

Sometimes I simply deliver the groceries. I park at the top of Mom’s driveway. I tie the IGA bags closed and slide them down to Ma and Pa Beaudry at the bottom of Kamikaze Hill. You want that chicken to go? No problem! It’s gone!

I try to park at the top of the hill and walk down. It’s easy in the summer, and even easier in the winter. One step and shwoosh... you’re at the back door.

Recently on one of our bitter cold days, the snow had a nice crust of ice on it. I stopped my van at the top of the driveway to pick up my son after work. My mother stood at the bottom of the hill encouraging him, I stood at the top doing the same. My son only weighed 65 lbs at the time and couldn't break through the ice for traction. He would take two steps, fall, and slide all the way back down. He needed ice picks and petons to make the climb. It took the poor kid about thirty minutes to climb up twenty feet. Neither my mother nor I could get him because we knew we couldn’t stay vertical on this icey driveway. The fact that we were laughing hysterically as my son did a Buster Keaton routine, probably didn’t help either.

My Mother rents out a lovely room out in the summer. She always warns people about this driveway but it doesn’t help. I see guests turn that corner and suddenly their vehicle is at that frightening pitch ! They have the same look you get when the roller coaster jerks to the top and pauses on the crest just before it releases you to that big plunge.

Someday the folks will get the driveway paved and pitched lower. It’s really only been like that since they moved here 25 years ago, I guess we all can manage another year...