Judy L., Knoxville TN
I learned to drive on my Dad’s stick shift in the early 60s. The car was a late-50s model Ford, the only car he would own. After a few sessions in the elementary school parking lot, he turned me loose on the two-lane rural roads around our neighborhood but finally threw up his hands when he couldn’t get me to look straight ahead and not at the hood ornament. The only way I could stay in my lane was to make sure the hood ornament lined up with the right edge of the road. I finally ‘got it’ in Drivers' Ed the next fall, and the summer before my senior year, my Dad’s birthday present to me was a $200 used Renault Dauphine, the cutest midget 2-door sedan ever. It had a cartoon horn, a fair radio, splendid heater, and used about as much gas as a lawnmower. You could look through the hole at the base of the stick shift and see the road whizzing by.
When I got my first job, I traded in my Dauphine for a used ‘63 Corvair, another cheap classic. I hated giving up the Renault, but common sense prevailed--the Renault was old and could die any minute and, worse, would be toast in an accident. The Corvair was sleek and elegant and robin’s egg blue. And it had a stick shift. Of course, I didn’t know nor would have cared that the first chapter in Ralph Nader's 1965 Unsafe at any Speed pretty much handed the Corvair its death sentence. Production ceased four years later, about the time I sold it and took over my new husband’s ’68 bottom-of-the-line Ford Cortina, also a stick shift.
My father's advice early on that manual gear shifts have less to go wrong and, therefore, are cheaper to repair seems to be a good rule regarding automation in general. Even though I love my current car, a 2007 Toyota Prius, I miss having a stick shift. In fact, I would also rather have manual windows and radio tuners--they may be slower, but they are more accurate. That was also my mother’s complaint about her electric sewing machine after selling her old Singer. But times change, and technology does often come up with something better, at least something better for the planet.
I’m glad I learned on a stick shift, because it gave me, from then on, the mind/body/machine connection, the sensation that my car is an extension of my body and not just a ‘thing’ to be prodded hither and yon. Without that, I don’t think I would be such a good parallel parker. I also think, and this is pure speculation, that early sense of control over my environment helped develop more fully both sides of my brain. When people say I drive like a man, I say, no, I drive like a woman with both left and right gears engaged.
When I got my first job, I traded in my Dauphine for a used ‘63 Corvair, another cheap classic. I hated giving up the Renault, but common sense prevailed--the Renault was old and could die any minute and, worse, would be toast in an accident. The Corvair was sleek and elegant and robin’s egg blue. And it had a stick shift. Of course, I didn’t know nor would have cared that the first chapter in Ralph Nader's 1965 Unsafe at any Speed pretty much handed the Corvair its death sentence. Production ceased four years later, about the time I sold it and took over my new husband’s ’68 bottom-of-the-line Ford Cortina, also a stick shift.
My father's advice early on that manual gear shifts have less to go wrong and, therefore, are cheaper to repair seems to be a good rule regarding automation in general. Even though I love my current car, a 2007 Toyota Prius, I miss having a stick shift. In fact, I would also rather have manual windows and radio tuners--they may be slower, but they are more accurate. That was also my mother’s complaint about her electric sewing machine after selling her old Singer. But times change, and technology does often come up with something better, at least something better for the planet.
I’m glad I learned on a stick shift, because it gave me, from then on, the mind/body/machine connection, the sensation that my car is an extension of my body and not just a ‘thing’ to be prodded hither and yon. Without that, I don’t think I would be such a good parallel parker. I also think, and this is pure speculation, that early sense of control over my environment helped develop more fully both sides of my brain. When people say I drive like a man, I say, no, I drive like a woman with both left and right gears engaged.