How to make the Shift

By the 1970’s automatic transmissions became common in cars, and if you came from a middle-class family, your dad bought one as soon as he could. My family, not so much! You see my father was a mechanic which meant two things, one, you never bought anything new if it could be fixed and second, your children were not fully raised unless they knew how to use the stick shift. Learning to drive a manual transmission was mandatory, when you made a smooth shift, “whola” you graduated into adulthood! The test was an old pick up with a refrigerator box placed upright in the bed of the truck, if it fell over while you shifted, you sucked and had to try again.

Dad said, “I know you will not be able to attain a perfect gear change, but the idea of attempting it can be likened to behavior, you will never get it perfect, but at least you try and try again.” Now this sounds like a reasonable analogy to a young kid and so after I passed drivers test, and yes I did take it in that manual transmission truck, I got my driver’s license at the age of sixteen!  Looking for any excuse to drive, I anxiously offered to pick my grandma up for church on Sundays. As she sat in the passenger side of the truck, I would look out the corner of my eye each time I shifted, and if her head bobbed, I knew I had to attempt the clutch/gas thing better. It was about the time I had almost perfectly eliminated the grandma head bob when my Dad did eventually purchase an automatic transmission Station wagon.  I sorry for my younger brothers and sisters, they might never experience the lessons that came from a perfect shift.

Some years later I discovered a passage from C.S Lewis, ‘Mere Christianity’ that reminded me of Dad’s lesson on the importance trying to achieve a perfect gear change.

“ … the human machine just as a perfect gear-changing machine is an ideal prescribed for all drivers by the very nature of cars. It would be even more dangerous to think of oneself as a person of ‘high ideals’ because one is trying to tell no lies at all (instead of only a few lies) or never to commit adultery (instead of committing it only seldom) or not to be a bully ( instead of being only a moderate bully).”

 I get it Dad, now that I am a parent and grandparent, it’s a great lesson.   In short, improving your skills is like improving your life, they go hand in hand.   I do miss two things though in this modern world,  the manual transmission, and my Grandma’s Head Bob.