As I mentioned in this post, most people couldn't name three kids who can drive a manual transmission. The real shame is because of that, they'll never get to experience the thrill of what I like to call "real driving." The speed at your beck and call. The precise control and coordination between foot and hand. The shame of being with your high school friends and stalling out on La Cienega just before Sunset and rolling into the car behind you.
Of course I made up that last one. Yeah, that's it. Made it up.
My first few cars were manual transmission, and I used to look for any excuse just to drive. At every red light, I felt like Andretti waiting for the green, revving the engine, giving the nod to the car next to me, ready to leave him in my dust.
Of course, it was a '71 Super Beetle so there wasn't a lot of dust. But you see where I'm going here.
Eventually, time takes it's toll in the form of children, and as any parent knows you always want to have one hand free to reach in the backseat and remind them where they come from. So inevitably the day comes for all of us where we give up the thrill of a stick shift for the convenience of an automatic transmission. We convince ourselves it feels almost as fast off the light. That's it's not so bad, which it's not (I'm good at fooling myself). Automatic really is a lot better at rush hour on the freeway, and that becomes sort of a mantra.
But if I'm ever stuck at a Hertz counter at a regional airport in farm country somewhere in the midwest at midnight - and why wouldn't I be - and all they have left is a beat up Ford Focus with a manual transmission, I'll be able to drive it.
Sadly, the 2015 graduating class of Driver's Ed can't say the same.
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