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I can drive a stick

I can. I really can. In fact, I prefer to drive a stick, although living in Nashville with all this traffic means I drive an automatic right now. Learning how to drive in the late 1990s/early2000 was a mish mash of manual and automatic transmissions. It is fast becoming a lost art to be able to drive a manual.


When I was a child my daddy's parents lived in rural Dickson County, Tennessee. They had several acres and my grandfather liked to farm a little. He planted vegetables and some fruits. I would go and stay with them sometimes. I was my Gangan's little buddy. We went everywhere together. And when he went into the fields, I was on his lap steering the tractor while he drove. I also would sit in his lap in the car and he would work the pedals while I "drove" back in those country roads. Now I know that is by far not the safest thing to do but it was a different time back then and it sure was fun.


I first learned to independently drive a car with my mother's automatic Plymouth Acclaim she had inherited from her father when he passed. It was a four door, nondescript, grocery getting car that was perfect for an elementary school teacher. I took my driver's test in it as well. My parents owned two manual transmission vehicles as well, a 1989 Toyota Tercel hatchback and a 1992 Toyota Tercel. The '89 was red and the '92 was blue. We looked very patriotic at our house as the Plymouth was a white/silver color. We had red, white, and blue vehicles parked in a row every day.

Photo credit: cars.com


My daddy tried to teach me to drive a stick but it did not go well. He and I almost came to blows several times. He likes to give consistent, detailed instructions. I, and he observed also my sister, like to be told how you want it to end up and be let alone to figure it out. He said a few times, "I don't understand, you want me to tell you what I want it to look like and even if it takes you three times as long you don't want me to say anything." No, I didn't. Why? I don't know. It was how my brain processed at the time. It still does, sometimes. What can I say? We're Scottish by heritage, very stubborn.


My high school boyfriend drove an old Toyota truck that was a stick. One day my daddy asked him if he would take me out in the '89 and try to teach me how to drive it. He agreed. We hopped in the car and my dad hollered after us, "Hit something cheap!"


My boyfriend took me to some rural roads he knew well with hills and dips and curves and all manner of things to negotiate. He was so calm. As I would try to drive around he would simply say, "Brake" or "Gas" or "Clutch" very calmly and quietly. It worked. Those were the somple instructions I needed to be able to pick up the skill. At the end of the afternoon I had it, like riding a bicycle, and it was coming very natural to me.


I went on to become the primary driver of the '92 Tercel. It was helpful to my parents for me to be able to run errands and take my kid sister places. They were both educators and worked a lot. Eventually I took it to college and then out to Colorado Springs where my daughter was born before it finally had to be retired with almost 300,000 miles on it. I cried. I won't lie.


This skill, and it is a skill, has come in handy throughout my life. My Gangan always said if I learned to drive a stick I could drive anything. While there are a few exceptions, he was mostly right. At a wedding reception for a colleague of my husband's one night another colleague had way too much to drink. He drove a really nice Ford Mustang and did NOT want to leave it at the location and be taken home. He was insistent he drive himself. He only calmed down and agreed to let someone drive him home when he found out I could drive a stick and had not been drinking. So I did. My husband drove our car with our two small children and I followed in the Mustang. It was a fun, zip zip ride and I had missed driving a stick. We got him and his vehicle home safe and sound that night.


There have been other times it has come in handy. My parents parked their manual transmission Camry at our house once a few years ago while they flew out to see mom's sister. I happened to have 6' live edge wood slabs in the back of my car with the seats down. My dad had forgotten I could drive a stick and offered to help me pull them out. I said, "Nope, I'm driving your car," and hopped in. It came back, just like riding a bike. And it was fun. And the few days they were gone I drove it instead of my car. Just don't tell my daddy I took his car cruising alright?


I have heard the joke that a manual transmission is now a millennial antitheft device. I do not disagree. It is very hard even to find one to learn on anymore. They still make them but they are not common. As I said before, I drive an automatic currently as a manual transmission would be awful to drive in heavy Nashville traffic. However, we plan on moving to the country soon. I told my husband when we do and it is time for a new (to me) vehicle I want a manual transmission to ride the country roads. I really do. It is fun in a way that driving an automatic never can be.


What skill do you still have that is a lost art?


Be well, y'all.

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