Learning To Drive Caroline Herring Pretty girl from a delta town made to run the gasoline down learned a little about many things our sweet potato cotton queen looks ahead when the whistles blow a lady knows when it's time to go learned to drive on the graveyard streets and gives a smile to all she meets daddy taught her to never look twice say thank-you ma'am and always look ni be the best like a football team scoring against the rivalry keep the insides hammered down best performer of the stage in town a speck surrounded by soybean fields in a land of red clay wheels they say she'd tumble over the pews go sit with the preacher too play flute from the choir loft sing alto and soprano parts gaze out at the back church wall stained glass Jesus standing tall holding all of His little lambs and the whole world in His hands the boys eyed her through the rear view mirror sucking two straws on strawberry hill driving back from a country bridge or throwing rocks from the water's edge but now she's all packed up in parceled pillars she's driving a U-Haul across the Mississippi River lanterns on the levee and a fist full of cotton old times there will not be forgotten