Mamma's License

Short Story by: Jim Shipp

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Mamma’s License

My grandparents' home occupied a goodly hill alongside US 31 in Hartselle, Alabama. Long before the advent of interstates, this artery was called the Bee Line Highway. Their house, garage, and large garden sat where the Express Inn is now located.

One day in the early 1960s, "Mamma" and her youngest daughter, my aunt Jo Beth, decided to go grocery shopping and climbed into Granddaddy's old 1951 Ford. Jo forgot her purse, so she ran back into the house to get it.

With Mamma sitting in the passenger's seat, the car began rolling backwards down the steep driveway and crossed the two southbound lanes of US 31 before she was finally able to get it stopped in the median strip.

Of course, a state trooper happened by at just that moment. He approached the car and asked Mamma for her driver's license. She fished through her purse and handed him one she had gotten in Texas in 1935. He was still laughing when Jo came running up, breathless.

He let Mamma go.

Submitted: December 15, 2020

Humor family-lore