For reasons only the truly unhinged can explain, my Driver’s Ed teacher barked, “Get tough!” Her voice was like a duck with a bullhorn. Our sedan tipped over the lip of San Francisco’s crooked Lombard Street, perched on a steep cliff with eight hairpin turns. Terrifying for a teen afraid of heights and whose driving résumé, until now, had only consisted of flat, straight roads. White-knuckling the wheel while three petrified classmates whimpered behind me, we grazed a curb, uprooted a hydrangea, and prayed the brakes wouldn’t mutiny. At the final curve, four strangers in a blue convertible cheered wildly.
Dr. Ingrid Wright is a retired dentist, whose travel and life stories celebrate resilience, wit, and the art of laughing at oneself.