Book idea from 1st Driving lesson

So I came up with this brilliant idea to write a book.

Maybe you’ve read about it? But here’s the big catch, I need your help.

Here is my plan. I’d love to incorporate stories from all over Hardee County ranging from the beginning of Hardee County until now.

I’d like to organize these stories and use the most interesting ones to publish in my book.

January would be chapter one. Chapter twelve would be December and the last page of the book would be New Year’s Eve.

I know a lot of people in Hardee County. But there are a lot of Hardee County people I’ve never met and I’m sure they have great stories too. This is where I need your help.

If you have a great story or know someone who does, try and condense it to a few short paragraphs but make it as interesting and worthwhile as it needs to be to make the story “great.” If you have a date range of when the story took place that would help, if not we will make an appendix and call a chapter “Not sure when or where?”

All you have to do is email me at kdkelly32@embarqmail.com, or send your letter to care of David Kelly, The Herald Advocate, P.O. Box 338, Wauchula, Fl. 33873.

I’ve had conversations with several of you who thought this would be a great idea. I’m going to run the “great stories” I get in the paper starting 9-2-10, if you send them in. If you don’t send any stories I guess I’ll just have to give a limited history of Hardee County from my perspective and not make the New York Times best seller list.

I’ll also need months of counseling to recover from my failed dream of becoming rich and famous as a world-wide celebrity that wrote a fascinating book about one of the greatest counties in Florida.

So don’t delay, interview that favorite aunt, uncle, grandmother, grandpa or crazy cousin or friend or brother or sister that tells that story that everyone laughs at every holiday and type it up and send it in to me.

Here’s a sample of what I’m talking about.

One of the great stories I remember falls in the category of I’m not sure when or where. Even though I’m kinda sure about where this event took place I could not put a time frame on when it took place only that it was when I was around 8 years old and must have been sometime in 1979. My first driving lesson with Mr. Eddie.

My best friend’s dad Eddie was teaching letting his oldest son Mark drive. Mark was doing a great job driving the old jeep around in a fairly open pasture with me and my sister in the back, his sister Nicole and his two brothers Matt and Willie in the back with us bouncing around all over the place.

Eddie decided Mark had the driving thing under control and I guess wanted us younger kids to take a shot. Nicole first drove the jeep nice and slow and kept it somewhat on the path. Next was Matt and he did pretty good despite not being able to see very good he just kinda drove without looking. Then came my turn to drive.

I was petrified, really, really nervous. I was only 8. This was back in the day when they didn’t have the little learn to drive electric vehicles that our kids have. I had ZERO driving experience unless you count a bike which I had only been doing for a few years. The thought of driving Mr. Eddie’s jeep had me scared to death. But he was persistent and Nicole had already done it so I couldn’t chicken out.

There I was driving at 8, all of sudden I noticed there were a lot more pine trees than when everyone else was driving. We were no longer in a open pasture, we were now in some woods. My fear level jumped to 10 and I began to panic. Eddie and Mark began to panic too. They started yelling at me, “hit the brakes, hit the brakes.” I yelled  back, “I am! My foot is all the way down on the brakes.”

Someone hollered out, “ He’s going 50 mph!”  Then Eddie screamed at me, “Step on the other brake with both feet!” It was then in my young driving career of 3 minutes that I learned the brake from the gas, I took my foot of the gas and slammed my feet down on the brakes slowing the car to 10 mph before I veered into a pine tree which assisted me in coming to a complete stop. Only the headlights and fender were hurt in the incident. I’ll never forget my first driving lesson.