3rd Gear – Hang on Tight
Feb. 25th, 2022 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dedalus_1947First gear – it’s all right.
Second gear – I’ll lean right.
Third gear – hang on tight.
Faster – it’s alright.
(Little Honda: Brian Wilson & Mike Love – 1964)
A few months ago, Kathy and I were sitting on our front porch when we heard and saw Robert, our neighbor from across the street, backing up and positioning a vintage Ford Bronco up his driveway and into his garage. What startled us was the unique sound of shifting transmission gears – moving from first gear to reverse, and back to first.
“Kathy”, I marveled aloud, “that car has a manual transmission, and I saw his son Jake driving and parking it the other day!”
Realizing that Robert must have taught his 15-year-old son how to drive a manual transmission (MT) car, I stood up, called out to him, and crossed the street. I had to compliment him on the wisdom (and patience) of teaching his children how to drive all types of cars.
Robert is a real “car guy”. He and his wife Ricki moved into the large, 3-car garage house across the street about 16 years ago with their infant daughter Sophia. Since that day, his driveway and garage have been filled with alternating vintage trucks, convertibles, and cars that he works on in his spare time, to keep or sell. It’s his hobby and his love, and it is fun watching the diverse cast of characters who bring their cars to him for customizing or modification, or those who come to buy or sell. It has also been fun watching his children grow up and, in varying degrees, help him with his cars. The most common task for the children was to move, park, and reposition the many alternating cars and trucks in the driveway and on the street. I assumed this was good practice for their daughter Sophia who was approaching Driver’s License age. However, it never occurred to me that Robert had taught both his children to drive a “stick shift” car. So, in that moment when I felt the compulsion to cross the street and praise Robert on his parenting wisdom, I also started remembering my own experiences of learning and teaching how to drive a MT car.
When I took my own California driving test in 1964 to acquire a license, I had only driven automatic transmission cars. As my father explained, “It’s like driving an Autopia car in Disneyland. You just put the transmission shift on “D” for Drive and you step on the accelerator pedal”. Driving was simple – if you owned an automatic transmission (AT) car. The only fly in this transmission ointment was the fact that in 1964 there were still many MT cars in circulation (with many more compact foreign cars yet to come). I managed to avoid driving a MT car for about a year until our family car was disabled and my dad borrowed an old Ford station wagon with a 3-speed column-shift with manual transmission from his brother for a few days. It was only then that I had my first lesson with a clutch and a manual column-shift lever. It was not a pleasant experience. I had been driving our AT station wagon for almost a year, so it was humiliating trying to synchronize the clutch pedal with my left foot, the accelerator pedal with my right foot, and the gear shift lever with my right hand. My dad became more and more impatient with my attempts to get out of first gear, and I got more and more frustrated whenever we practiced. The experience reminded me of the reason my mother gave for never learning to drive a car: claiming that dad’s exasperation at her failure to manipulate the gear shift shamed her into total refusal to learn. I, on the other hand, simply avoided that old Ford as much as possible – until the day came when I had to drive it to my dad’s photography studio. It was a torturous journey, with the engine stalling out on me whenever I stopped, and then making loud shredding sounds as I tried shifting gears from first to second. I ignored the 3rd gear unless it was absolutely necessary to shift. After that humiliating experience, I avoided all manual transmissions until my father bought me a Honda motor scooter to drive to UCLA.
Transportation became problematic for our family in 1966. We had two vehicles at home, but my three siblings (Art, Stela, and Gracie) drove one car to the same high school, my dad drove to the office car to work, and I still needed to travel 15 miles daily to UCLA for classes. My dad’s solution was the purchase of a new Honda 50 motor scooter from a nearby dealership. At first, I was doubtful when learning that the scooter was a MT vehicle, requiring shifting gears, but the salesman insisted that it was semi-automatic, with a gear shift pedal and handle accelerator that were easy to operate. After signing the paperwork and a few practice sessions later, I drove the motor scooter home, and I had my own private source of transportation to college and anywhere else I wanted to go. Riding was as easy as the Beach Boys made it sound in their 1964 song, Little Honda. It was a liberating experience to have one’s own means of transportation which also accommodated one passenger. The Honda also proved to be a marvelous vehicle for overcoming my MT fears. It provided the means to feel the operations required in driving a manual transmission vehicle. One could feel the synchronized balance and timing between the 3-speed clutch pedal and the handle accelerator. The Honda gave me a clear mental picture of how the clutch pedal and gear shift lever worked in synchronization with the accelerator pedal in any MT vehicle. I soon shed my reluctance and dread of manual transmission cars and started looking forward to the day I would drive one on a regular basis.
By the late 60’s, it seemed that all my high school friends and acquaintances were driving foreign cars and Volkswagens with manual transmission and four speeds. In 1970, my siblings and I finally convinced our father to abandon Chevy cars in favor of buying a new yellow Volkswagen “bug”, which was both practical and economical. Soon after, we were all driving the Volkswagen confidently, gaining more and more experience with time. Driving a four speed Volkswagen was fun, especially because it fully involved the driver – requiring all one’s attention: sighting the road ahead; down-shifting as one slowed; and breaking smoothly without stalling. The only skill that took a long time in mastering was coming to a full stop on an upwardly facing hill. My friends and I would trade horror stories of driving up and down the hills of San Francisco, breaking to a complete stop, and then quickly trying to shift our foot from the brake pedal to the accelerator to move forward without rolling backwards. The trick of course was to never keep your foot solely on the brake pedal when stopping on an upwardly facing hill – but to keep the halted car in immobile suspension by balancing your accelerator and clutch pedal. I would eventually inherit and drive that yellow Volkswagen for 28 years, passing it on to my son and daughter when they received their drivers’ licenses, until its untimely demise in 1998.
I suppose the reason I wanted to compliment and praise Robert for teaching his children to drive MT cars is because it is becoming a lost art, practiced by eccentric car lovers or professional drivers. In speaking to him about it, I discovered that we shared the same pride in the belief that it was important for our children to drive all types of vehicles – with manual or with automatic transmissions. The challenge of course lay in teaching them – especially since all I could remember from my dad’s initial instructions was his impatience and frustration with my inability to quickly grasp the technique. Luckily, I’d had a primer on the experience when attempting to teach my brother Eddie to drive the Volkswagen in 1975 and teaching my son Toñito how to ride a bike in 1985. On both occasions I repeated my father’s mistake of expecting the novice driver and bike rider to master a complex balancing skill on the first try. It was a bad way to introduce any beginner to an experience that should be confident and joyful. However, I did learn from those first attempts at instruction, and when I first took Toñito (and later Prisa) to drive the Volkswagen in 1995, all we did was practice balancing the clutch and accelerator pedals and going from first to second gear for 30 minutes. That was it. Shifting gears is a separate skill from steering a moving car, so we concentrated on shifting gears with the clutch and accelerator pedal. Both children improved with each 30-minute instruction, and after three sessions they were steering the car in third gear. Thinking of those occasions, and when accompanying Toñito and Prisa in the Volkswagen as they were driving with their Learner’s Permit, have become moments of bliss for me now. Sometimes we remember our mistakes and try to correct them for our children. Hopefully I was successful with mine.
Second gear – I’ll lean right.
Third gear – hang on tight.
Faster – it’s alright.
(Little Honda: Brian Wilson & Mike Love – 1964)
A few months ago, Kathy and I were sitting on our front porch when we heard and saw Robert, our neighbor from across the street, backing up and positioning a vintage Ford Bronco up his driveway and into his garage. What startled us was the unique sound of shifting transmission gears – moving from first gear to reverse, and back to first.
“Kathy”, I marveled aloud, “that car has a manual transmission, and I saw his son Jake driving and parking it the other day!”
Realizing that Robert must have taught his 15-year-old son how to drive a manual transmission (MT) car, I stood up, called out to him, and crossed the street. I had to compliment him on the wisdom (and patience) of teaching his children how to drive all types of cars.
Robert is a real “car guy”. He and his wife Ricki moved into the large, 3-car garage house across the street about 16 years ago with their infant daughter Sophia. Since that day, his driveway and garage have been filled with alternating vintage trucks, convertibles, and cars that he works on in his spare time, to keep or sell. It’s his hobby and his love, and it is fun watching the diverse cast of characters who bring their cars to him for customizing or modification, or those who come to buy or sell. It has also been fun watching his children grow up and, in varying degrees, help him with his cars. The most common task for the children was to move, park, and reposition the many alternating cars and trucks in the driveway and on the street. I assumed this was good practice for their daughter Sophia who was approaching Driver’s License age. However, it never occurred to me that Robert had taught both his children to drive a “stick shift” car. So, in that moment when I felt the compulsion to cross the street and praise Robert on his parenting wisdom, I also started remembering my own experiences of learning and teaching how to drive a MT car.
When I took my own California driving test in 1964 to acquire a license, I had only driven automatic transmission cars. As my father explained, “It’s like driving an Autopia car in Disneyland. You just put the transmission shift on “D” for Drive and you step on the accelerator pedal”. Driving was simple – if you owned an automatic transmission (AT) car. The only fly in this transmission ointment was the fact that in 1964 there were still many MT cars in circulation (with many more compact foreign cars yet to come). I managed to avoid driving a MT car for about a year until our family car was disabled and my dad borrowed an old Ford station wagon with a 3-speed column-shift with manual transmission from his brother for a few days. It was only then that I had my first lesson with a clutch and a manual column-shift lever. It was not a pleasant experience. I had been driving our AT station wagon for almost a year, so it was humiliating trying to synchronize the clutch pedal with my left foot, the accelerator pedal with my right foot, and the gear shift lever with my right hand. My dad became more and more impatient with my attempts to get out of first gear, and I got more and more frustrated whenever we practiced. The experience reminded me of the reason my mother gave for never learning to drive a car: claiming that dad’s exasperation at her failure to manipulate the gear shift shamed her into total refusal to learn. I, on the other hand, simply avoided that old Ford as much as possible – until the day came when I had to drive it to my dad’s photography studio. It was a torturous journey, with the engine stalling out on me whenever I stopped, and then making loud shredding sounds as I tried shifting gears from first to second. I ignored the 3rd gear unless it was absolutely necessary to shift. After that humiliating experience, I avoided all manual transmissions until my father bought me a Honda motor scooter to drive to UCLA.
Transportation became problematic for our family in 1966. We had two vehicles at home, but my three siblings (Art, Stela, and Gracie) drove one car to the same high school, my dad drove to the office car to work, and I still needed to travel 15 miles daily to UCLA for classes. My dad’s solution was the purchase of a new Honda 50 motor scooter from a nearby dealership. At first, I was doubtful when learning that the scooter was a MT vehicle, requiring shifting gears, but the salesman insisted that it was semi-automatic, with a gear shift pedal and handle accelerator that were easy to operate. After signing the paperwork and a few practice sessions later, I drove the motor scooter home, and I had my own private source of transportation to college and anywhere else I wanted to go. Riding was as easy as the Beach Boys made it sound in their 1964 song, Little Honda. It was a liberating experience to have one’s own means of transportation which also accommodated one passenger. The Honda also proved to be a marvelous vehicle for overcoming my MT fears. It provided the means to feel the operations required in driving a manual transmission vehicle. One could feel the synchronized balance and timing between the 3-speed clutch pedal and the handle accelerator. The Honda gave me a clear mental picture of how the clutch pedal and gear shift lever worked in synchronization with the accelerator pedal in any MT vehicle. I soon shed my reluctance and dread of manual transmission cars and started looking forward to the day I would drive one on a regular basis.
By the late 60’s, it seemed that all my high school friends and acquaintances were driving foreign cars and Volkswagens with manual transmission and four speeds. In 1970, my siblings and I finally convinced our father to abandon Chevy cars in favor of buying a new yellow Volkswagen “bug”, which was both practical and economical. Soon after, we were all driving the Volkswagen confidently, gaining more and more experience with time. Driving a four speed Volkswagen was fun, especially because it fully involved the driver – requiring all one’s attention: sighting the road ahead; down-shifting as one slowed; and breaking smoothly without stalling. The only skill that took a long time in mastering was coming to a full stop on an upwardly facing hill. My friends and I would trade horror stories of driving up and down the hills of San Francisco, breaking to a complete stop, and then quickly trying to shift our foot from the brake pedal to the accelerator to move forward without rolling backwards. The trick of course was to never keep your foot solely on the brake pedal when stopping on an upwardly facing hill – but to keep the halted car in immobile suspension by balancing your accelerator and clutch pedal. I would eventually inherit and drive that yellow Volkswagen for 28 years, passing it on to my son and daughter when they received their drivers’ licenses, until its untimely demise in 1998.
I suppose the reason I wanted to compliment and praise Robert for teaching his children to drive MT cars is because it is becoming a lost art, practiced by eccentric car lovers or professional drivers. In speaking to him about it, I discovered that we shared the same pride in the belief that it was important for our children to drive all types of vehicles – with manual or with automatic transmissions. The challenge of course lay in teaching them – especially since all I could remember from my dad’s initial instructions was his impatience and frustration with my inability to quickly grasp the technique. Luckily, I’d had a primer on the experience when attempting to teach my brother Eddie to drive the Volkswagen in 1975 and teaching my son Toñito how to ride a bike in 1985. On both occasions I repeated my father’s mistake of expecting the novice driver and bike rider to master a complex balancing skill on the first try. It was a bad way to introduce any beginner to an experience that should be confident and joyful. However, I did learn from those first attempts at instruction, and when I first took Toñito (and later Prisa) to drive the Volkswagen in 1995, all we did was practice balancing the clutch and accelerator pedals and going from first to second gear for 30 minutes. That was it. Shifting gears is a separate skill from steering a moving car, so we concentrated on shifting gears with the clutch and accelerator pedal. Both children improved with each 30-minute instruction, and after three sessions they were steering the car in third gear. Thinking of those occasions, and when accompanying Toñito and Prisa in the Volkswagen as they were driving with their Learner’s Permit, have become moments of bliss for me now. Sometimes we remember our mistakes and try to correct them for our children. Hopefully I was successful with mine.
