“Build up your speed here,” I say.

        He does, gradually, steadily, properly, as if he's been doing it his whole life, not just the past six days.

        “Check your mirrors. You still have to yield. This isn't Daytona.”

        He does all that. He drives like a little old lady. Maybe for graduation, we'll get him an Oldsmobile.

        His mother is thrilled with his progress. Let him take over the family taxi service, she figures. She lets him drive around the block just to practice using his turn signal. I am less enthusiastic.

        One night last week, I had to return a videotape to a neighbor.

        “Can I drive?” The Kid asked.

        “No,” I said.

        I know why I'm melancholic about this. It's not the added insurance premium or the inevitable, ritual nagging about borrowing the car, followed by the water-torturous clamoring for his own set of wheels.

        It's the loss of time. It is the thief that time becomes. The older we get, the better time steals.

        It was only a few months ago The Kid got the two-wheeler and we pushed him down the common drive, holding the back of the seat until he found his balance.

        Or maybe it was years. Seven or eight years.

        It's not that The Kid is driving, or that for the next few years we'll be walking the floor on Saturday night until we see the headlights safely in the driveway. It is that someday soon, much sooner that we imagined, he'll drive away and he won't come back. At least not for dinner.

        Life runs faster from you every year. The older you get, the harder to seize it becomes.

        “Should I signal here?” he asks.

        “Of course. You're exiting, right?”

        “Yeah.”

        “You always signal when you exit.”

        This definitive rite of passage for him is also one for me. It's another stage in letting go. It doesn't matter if I'm not ready for it, or if this merciless sprint of time makes me impossibly sad.

        He will drive. He needs keys.

        Life never moves at an acceptable speed. When you're 15, you want nothing more than to be 16. When you are 20, 21 can't come fast enough. You say “I can't wait” a lot.

        When you are 40, you don't wait breathlessly for 41.

        “Should I get over to the right lane?” he wants to know.

        Since he's doing 55 in the middle lane, the speed limit is 65 and he has a homicidal trucker hugging his bumper, that would seem wise.

        “Yes,” I say.

        The Kid is, I would think, a fine young man. He is secure with himself and his place in the world. He is good to his sister. He is kind. I like him a lot.

        But he's in a hurry now. Big things are coming. Sixteen, 18, 21. Let the world begin.

        I'm on the other end, grabbing desperately at the minute hand on the big clock. Trying to stall the days, or at least slow them down.

        It's not the driving. It's the time, gone for good.

        My brother once stared at his 2-year-old daughter and said to me, “They grow up so fast.” I thought he was nuts.

        That was 20 years ago. Seems like last week.
        Contact Paul Daugherty at 768-8454; e-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com.
       

Superhero leaps from page to screen
Some projects never leave drawing board
Cammy nominees cover wide spectrum
Cammys to feature King Records tribute
Sept. 11 casts huge shadow over TV business
Artist plans memorial for 9-11 victims
DAUGHERTY: Everyday
KENDRICK: Alive & well
Once homeless, now hopeful
Photos of streetcars are Westwood man's desire
CCM's 'Moveable Feast' a performance buffet
Playhouse's 'Blues' should cheer you up
DEMALINE: The Arts
Everything adds up in Stoppard's 'Arcadia'
GELFAND: Classical music
Louisville native rooting for 'In The Bedroom'
Sony Classics buys Louiso's feature films
Sunday Salon series begins in February
Mmm, good: Bowls good enough to eat
One minute you're chewing, the next you're choking
Serve it this week: Parsnips
Get to it