Every Once In A While...

...someone posts something that inspires you.

Maybe not in terms of "OMG! I know my purpose in life now!" but in terms of, "OMG! I gotta write about that too!"

Hey, thanks, Wendy. You just plain made my day.

Soooooo, to use Sheila's phrase, let's take a ride on the way-back machine, shall we?

When I was a teenager, I worked in a movie theater. Maybe not the most glamorous job in the world, but it made me enough money working afternoons and weekends that I had pocket change.

What I didn't have was a car, and my parents got tired of shuffling me back and forth to the theater - or worse yet, letting me borrow one of their cars - so I could go to work.

So I began a campaign of pestering, and finally the decision was reached that I could get a car.

My first car was a blue rollerskate. By which I mean, a 1981 Honda Accord hatchback.

One problem.

It was a stick shift.

Now, I am of the firm belief that men and women speak different languages. Never has this been more clear to me than when my mother tried to teach me how to drive that car.

"Ok, now, you have to be careful with the clutch, and watch the gas at the same time, and then just shift."

. . . o (Watch it do WHAT?)



*CoughcoughcoughCOUGHGRINDDDDDDGRINDSPUtterwheezeJERK*

....and the car died.

It died again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and...

All the while, my mother and I were both getting more frustrated with each attempt, as she tried hundreds of different - though equally incomprehensible - methods to explain to me exactly what I was supposed to do.

Finally giving up, we went back home, under obvious cartoonish storm clouds.

My father, never one to miss a trick, cornered me later that evening.

"Son, I hear the driving didn't go well today."

"OUTSTANDING talent for the obvious, Dad."

"You want me to teach you, or you want Day Two of this fun?"

"This is the sound of me not saying shit."

"Right. What you gotta do is let up on the gas and hit the clutch at the same time - flipflop your feet - then you move the stick - then flipflop the other way."

"That's it?"

"Yep. It'll take practice to get quick at it, but that's all there is."

"What the fuck. Thanks, Dad."

"No problem. I figured this would happen; your Mom speaks Girl."

Ah-HA.

So, bright and early on Day Two, my Mom takes me out and gives me basically the same incoherent speech about the clutch I heard yesterday.

It took me two or three tries to actually get it right, but then off we went.

Granted, it was like two weeks before I had gotten the hang of not grinding the gears too often, and not stalling the car, but I was all set.

That car wasn't pretty, but it hauled me - and loads of my friends - around the rest of my time in high school.

It even saved my life, once.

Yeah, why not? As a bonus, I'll tell you that story too.

I was driving to work one afternoon, crossing under a freeway through an underpass, when an 18-wheeler decided he didn't really have to stop for that pesky red light, after all.

I looked over just in time to see the "Mack" emblem on his grill disappear over the roof of my car. (Yeah, Hondas are tiny.) Now THAT is a scary sight. I remember saying something normal, like "SHIT!!!"

I had been in the right-hand lane of an eight lane (four each way) street. When I came to rest, I was sitting on the esplenade in the middle, all the way across the intersection. I looked at the intersection - which I was facing, having gotten turned completely around - and there was the trucker, driving merrily away.

No, I don't think all truckers are like that.

No I don't know who he was driving for; I got knocked around pretty good and wasn't all that focused, hmm?

I sat there for what seemed like ten minutes. I know it was at least two cycles of the light at the intersection. Finally, someone pulled over into the left lane, turned on his four-ways, and got out to check on me.

I was actually unharmed, just really, really surprised and a good bit shaken. Getting t-boned by an 18-wheeler will do that for you. Fortunately for me, my car was as light as a ping-pong ball, and reacted accordingly; I had gotten bounced, instead of crushed and mangled. That, dontcha know, is the "saved my life" part. Had I been driving my father's Mercury, I almost certainly wouldn't be here today - they're heavy steel, sure, but they don't "bounce" much, either. The truck would almost certainly have won that one, as much as it pains me to admit it.

The Good Samaritan, having established that I was basically unhurt, decided that his coolness did not extend to hanging out with cops, so he bailed.

After a few minutes, based largely in the fact that I didn't know what else to do, so did I; I was better than half-way to work, so that's where I went.

That was fun.

My boss, a great guy, took one look at me and said "go in the office and lie down."

He went out and looked at my car, and came back in and said "dude, I'm calling your folks to come get you."

I liked that job.

My folks came, and made appropriate noises.

Later, after my father - always a good man in a crisis - got with the cops and talked them out of busting me for leaving the scene, it was established that none of the businesses near the accident site had seen anything. They heard it, but no-one saw the truck, or what company it was.

The trucker, to the best of my knowledge, got away clean.

My poor car didn't. The right strut and spindel assembly was totally broken, the rear tire was all destroyed, the frame was bent - and separated in one spot - the whole rear right of the car was all bashed in, and the truck's grill had left what looked like claw marks of torn metal in the side panel of my car.

My father, with enormous patience, spent I don't know how many weekends - but a lot - rooting through local junkyards with me to find all the parts, and getting that car back in roadworthy condition. The body panel was the most fun I've ever had with a dent puller.

We got the car back on the road, though. I drove it the rest of my time there, before I went to college.

Thanks, Dad.

I don't remember now if I said so at the time. I feel like I must have, but it doesn't seem like I said it enough. Thanks for teaching me in five minutes the secrets of the stick shift. Thanks for letting me go where I wanted and do what I wanted, even when it wasn't what you wanted.

Thanks for taking the time - and loads of effort - to keep me rolling.

I hope I can be as good to my son.