More Gray Hair

Today my soon to be 18 year old son got his motorcycle permit. I can already feel my hair turning gray! I am quickly reaching maximum stress level and he doesn't even have a motorcycle yet!

My mother survived this fear - her son was only 15 when he purchased his first Harley. Yes, it sat on the porch for several months before he could ride it down the road. Of course, this is the same son who set out for a month long bear hunting trip to Idaho instead of attending his high school graduation. But she is also the one who was able to force the bear hunting camp to give her an unlisted phone number of a police officer in California that my brother had followed out there when he forgot to call home one night. She is also the mother who completely lost it when I (at 17) announced that I was going to ride to Alaska on a motorcycle (I got the idea from a motorcycle commercial in the mid-1970's ). Of course, it never happened, but it was a good idea at the time! I wonder if it was the motorcycle or the fact that I was a girl.....

My fear isn't that my son will not be a good rider. He was 5 when he stole the riding lawn mower from my brother's house and drove it across the fields to his grandpa's. He was driving a tractor before he was 10 (I didn't find out about it until after he was 10). His dad let him drive on abandoned strip mining roads when he was 12 - after all he was already driving a tractor! He has raced ATV's and dirt bikes. He is a good driver. My problem is that all of these people who are coming down the road toward him don't understand that he is my baby and they need to be extra careful around him. For my sake. Please!