I MISS SHIFTING

Last October I bought my 2018 bright red Honda Civic with some of the money my father left me when he passed away almost a year ago. I took my time looking & finally purchased the car that I wanted. Nine months later I still love it! There are times when I walk out into the garage & think, "Damn, that's my car!"

While talking to the salesman at the Honda dealer, I asked about stick shifts saying I've always driven one. I might add he sounded impressed that at 68 years old, I still preferred a stick shift. He shook his head & lamented, "I know what you mean. I prefer a stick shift, too, but it is getting harder & harder to find one. I don't think we have a single stick on the lot." Having read that automatics were now more fuel efficient than a stick, I made the decision to buy my first automatic.

My only occasional, very minor regret is that it isn't a stick shift - at least until I'm sitting in a traffic jam pushing the clutch in & out constantly or stopped at the top of a steep hill in San Francisco with a car behind me right on my bumper. That is when I appreciate the fact that I own an automatic

My dad was a car guy & I suppose I inherited some of that from him. From the time he was a teenager he loved his cars. No matter what car he owned, he would pretty much wipe it down daily. My dad's cars were NEVER dirty. Even his job revolved around cars. He was an autoworker with General Motors for 30 years.

In 1963 my dad somehow talked my mom into letting him buy a 1960 MGA from a guy at work who had an accident with it. He took over payments of $300 (total, not per month!) & paid him another $300. The fender was repaired & it was painted a metallic silver blue. It was a cool ass car & I loved it almost as much as my dad!

At 13 years old I would sit in the car in the garage practicing putting the clutch in & shifting through the gears on weekend mornings. When I was 14 my dad often took me to an open field & taught me the fine art of shifting smoothly. It took a long time & fortunately neither of us got whiplash as I jerked that little car hundreds of times. But I finally learned & was pretty damn good at it if I do say so myself.

The day I turned 16, I took my driver's license test in that MG & passed with flying colors! But I was a little pissed off at the examiner who had to find something to mark me off on - he said I stopped over the crosswalk at a stop sign. Hell, I don't think I did & I nailed the parallel parking on the first try.

Every car I have owned over the years was a stick shift. I've always liked the control that you have being able to shift yourself rather than rely on the transmission. There is a real knack to holding a stick shift on a hill by gently using the clutch & gas pedal. And being my dad's car girl I think I impressed a few guys back in the day. The first time I drove my car when Lou was with me 18 years ago, he exclaimed, "Wow! It's a stick!"

Darrin also inherited his grandfather's car gene since he, too, learned to drive on a stick shift (that's all we had!)  He recently told me my dad was instrumental in teaching him the fine art of shifting a car as well. Darrin also took his driver's test on a stick on his 16th birthday & may have even beat me by a point or two on his score. And, yep, he was upset he didn't get a perfect score, too! Like mother, like son.

But, alas, now both Darrin & Lou have had automatics for several years. They would occasionally drive my 6-speed Nissan Versa that I traded in for the Civic just to make sure they could still do it. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone with a stick shift to drive sometime. But I have heard that it's like riding a bike, you never forget. I hope so.

What seems a bit sad to me is that Charley may never learn to drive a stick shift car. I plan to give her my little red Civic when she turns 16. My dad gave Darrin his Isuzu Impulse (a 5-speed) when he turned 16 so I want to continue the tradition. And I'm crossing my fingers that someone Darrin knows will own a stick shift that he can teach Charley to drive - just so she knows what real driving is like.

All this reminiscing came about today as I was driving to the store & thought, "I miss shifting." Sometimes it hardly feels like I'm driving. But, unfortunately, things change in life. And I will always have my memories of driving that super cool, bad ass, silver blue MG as a teen-ager!

PS: My mother & sister took the MG to the Cow Palace to watch a horseshow in the early 1970s. When they came out, it was gone! It had been stolen from a main street where it was parked. They found the license plates (BPU 419, I still remember it) in the trunk of another car a few weeks later. The police surmised that it had probably been sold for parts. Shit! It deserved a better fate.