97-year-old great-grandmother checks 'drive big rig' off her bucket list
'Every time I saw a truck going by, I used to wish that I was driving it,' Vera Abruzzi says
A New Jersey great-grandmother with dreams of driving a big rig checked that one off her ambitious bucket list this week.
Vera Abruzzi, a 97-year-old from New Brunswick, N.J., recently told her grandson of her truck-driving desires.
"Every time I saw a truck going by, I used to wish that I was driving it," Abruzzi told New Jersey's News 12. "I always wanted to drive a tractor-trailer, not a car."
On Wednesday, the grandmother of four and great-grandmother of seven was given a free lesson at Winsor's Tractor Trailer Driving School in Linden, where Abruzzi took the 70-foot rig for a test drive — in a parking lot. Top speed: 20 miles an hour.
"If I was on the highway, I'd go 90," Abruzzi joked.
Next up on her bucket list? Piloting a plane.
"That would be a dream come true," Abruzzi's grandson, Gary Kadi, told WABC-TV. "I think it's going to be a little more difficult than driving a tractor-trailer, but whatever she requests, we're on it."
