My dad may have the record for most years as a Belle Plaine driving instructor, but he was not the first Belle Plaine teacher to bravely sit behind the wheel with classes of student drivers. Dean Carl, a Belle Plaine Community Schools graduate who was through school by the time my father came to town, learned to drive from one of the instructors who preceded my dad. The teacher’s name was Les Deaton, and Mr. Carl still remembers the lessons he learned in Deaton’s drivers ed classes:
"It was I believe, in my sophomore year in the early ‘50’s, and I was taking drivers training. Les Deaton was my drivers training instructor. The car we drove in had a straight stick, so there was housing covering the transmission. The housing, or transmission tunnel, came up to the gear shift (check Google for images to see what these transmission tunnels looked like).
"Our drivers training teacher set a glass milk bottle (all milk bottles were glass at that time) on the transmission. If anyone turned a corner too fast or stopped too quickly and, as a result, tipped over the glass milk bottle, they were required to put a quarter into the bottle. At the end of the driving year, all money collected in the glass milk bottle was used to buy food and drink so we—the drivers ed students—could celebrate.
"When I was taking drivers ed, I never carried any quarters because I didn’t have any. The milk bottle made me be a more careful driver then and even today. At the end of the term, there was probably $5.00 in the bottle. Everyone got to be involved in the party. Of course, back then pop was 5 cents a bottle."
"It was I believe, in my sophomore year in the early ‘50’s, and I was taking drivers training. Les Deaton was my drivers training instructor. The car we drove in had a straight stick, so there was housing covering the transmission. The housing, or transmission tunnel, came up to the gear shift (check Google for images to see what these transmission tunnels looked like).
"Our drivers training teacher set a glass milk bottle (all milk bottles were glass at that time) on the transmission. If anyone turned a corner too fast or stopped too quickly and, as a result, tipped over the glass milk bottle, they were required to put a quarter into the bottle. At the end of the driving year, all money collected in the glass milk bottle was used to buy food and drink so we—the drivers ed students—could celebrate.
"When I was taking drivers ed, I never carried any quarters because I didn’t have any. The milk bottle made me be a more careful driver then and even today. At the end of the term, there was probably $5.00 in the bottle. Everyone got to be involved in the party. Of course, back then pop was 5 cents a bottle."
