Driving Miss Lizzie, Part I

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“Why has the car stopped?” 

“Ah!” I said with manly frankness that became me well. “There you have me.” 

You see, I’m one of those birds who drive a lot but don’t know the first thing about the works. The policy I pursue is to get aboard, prod the self-starter, and leave the rest to Nature.” ~ P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

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“I bought a car.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but with those four little words my world tipped on its axis. It was just over a month until our wedding, and Mr. H was calling from England to let me know that after weeks of searching he had finally found a car he liked. After a decade of relying primarily on public transport he had once again taken the plunge into the expensive realm of car ownership. Since there would soon be two of us it was finally more cost-effective to own a car, and oh, such fun places we would travel to together. I could hardly wait.

There was one caveat, however, and it was a big one: it was a manual transmission. This was not wholly unexpected news given the fact that 75% of the cars sold in Britain are manuals, but here’s the rub – in all of my twenty-nine years of driving experience I had only ever driven automatics. Still, driving a manual couldn’t be all that hard, could it? And besides, it was something I’d always had a secret hankering to learn. Every good movie car chase always cuts to a shot of the driver changing gears with finesse, before swinging around a corner sideways and racing off with a squeal of tyres and a cloud of burning rubber smoke. Not that I intended to drive like that, of course, but it would be kind of thrilling to know that at long last I could if I wanted to.

In those giddy, carefree days before reality hit me I managed to bury my fears and began to be excited at the prospect. True, a few people hinted darkly that in order to pass the UK driving test I would probably need a few lessons, but I figured maybe one or two would do the trick. I just needed to get the hang of it and adjust to driving on the left side and everything would be fine. Perhaps what set me up to think it would be such a simple endeavour was that when I learned to drive the first time it was so easy.

The summer I was sixteen I stayed with my grandparents to help out while my grandmother had cataract surgery. They lived on the Oregon coast, but the doctor’s office was on the other side of the mountains, in Eugene, and someone needed to be able to drive them back and forth to Grandma’s appointments. By the time the family sorted out that I was the only one free to go we had just over three weeks for me to study the driving manual, take my test for a learner’s permit, and then learn to drive with enough competence to pass the driving test and qualify for my license. It still amazes me that no one thought there was anything unrealistic about this plan. We were a crew of cock-eyed optimists, I’ll say that.

That was a wonderful summer.

My grandmother and I drove everywhere together. We drove up into the hills outside of town and discovered back roads I’d never known existed, passing through dark pine woods and upland clearings overgrown with Scotch broom. We headed south along Highway 101 where it snakes around hairpin turns with sheer drops down to the pounding surf 300 feet below. We swooped past sparkling Eckman Lake and the tidal flats of the Alsea River until the mountains closed in around us and the trees arched overhead in a dark, sun dappled canopy. Wild iris, foxgloves and fields of daisies were a blur alongside the road as we charged up and over Mary’s Peak. We practiced parallel parking on the steep, crowded streets of bustling Newport. We covered mile after mile together in Grandma’s 1978 Ford T-Bird, and as we drove we talked.

That summer I discovered things about my grandparents I’d never known.  I learned that my grandmother, who I’d always viewed as overly cautious, actually loved driving fast on winding mountain roads. I learned that her first jobs had been folding sheets in a laundry and plucking chickens in a processing plant, before she moved on to the much greener pastures  of working for the telephone company. I also discovered that cars had played a vital role in my family’s very existence. When my grandmother’s pretty blue eyes and nice legs caught the attention of young Herman Sherwood he began showing up at the end of her shift to see her home. Young Thelma was not impressed, and she used to sneak out the back way to avoid him – until the day he showed up in a new car and offered to drive her home. The rest, as they say, is history. But how would history have differed if my grandfather had not bought his first car at that opportune time? Would I even be here?

The weeks flew by, and my grandmother told everyone who would listen what a good driver I was. In the years since I have often declared that being taught to drive by a benevolent grandmother with failing eyesight was the perfect way to learn. She probably didn’t see all of the stupid things I did, and I certainly didn’t point them out to her, and even the things she did observe didn’t faze her. She remained calm when I very nearly ploughed through a flock of geese that had decided to cross the road in front of us, and she merely chuckled and helped guide me when I came within inches of wiping out the gas pump at the local station every time we stopped for fuel. She had the patience of, well, of a grandmother, and you’d never have known from her attitude that we were on something of a time crunch for me to learn everything I needed to know to pass the exam.

Lest you think that my grandfather was sitting idly by while all of this was taking place, he also took me out from time to time. Grandpa had two cars, one a giant old orange Chevy pickup truck that was like driving a tank down the road, and the other a Cadillac nearly as long as a three-masted schooner that floated elegantly along, muffled in serene silence. In spite of its massive length you could turn the Caddy on a dime with just the touch of a finger on the steering wheel. Guess which one I got to drive? If you guessed the tank you guessed correctly. No one, not even Grandma, ever got to drive Grandpa’s Cadillac. That car was his baby.

Grandpa and I would drive to town to get the mail. The tank was getting on in years, and it smelled faintly of wet dog and gun oil, but when driving it down the highway at a top speed of 45 miles per hour I felt strong and indestructible. Being higher than most of the other cars really did go to my head; somehow there is something intoxicating about looking down on everyone else. Going to fetch the mail had never been such an adventure.

Back in 1985 the Waldport post office was still housed in a small building next to the town library. Just a narrow strip of alley and a single row of parking bays separated the two, and negotiating my way into one of those parking spaces in that big old pickup truck with no power steering required both strength and skill. I used to hope for an empty space next to me so there would be no danger of me accidentally wiping out one of the adjacent cars when departing. There came a day, inevitably, when my worst nightmare was realized. I had parked with an empty space on either side of me, but by the time I retrieved the mail and returned outside both of those spaces had been filled. The cars had parked so close to us that I could only open the door wide enough to barely squeeze back inside the cab. If it had been up to me I would have sat there until the post office closed and all the other cars departed. I couldn’t see any way out of that space without damaging something. Ahead of me was the post office, close behind me was the wall of the library, beside me were two cars and just a few inches of manoeuvring room. Beginning to panic and on the verge of tears, I told my grandfather there was no way I could do it. We both knew, however, that his arthritic hands and shoulders made it impossible for him to take over and do it for me. Realistically, we couldn’t sit there waiting for the parking lot to be empty. It was a case of needs must.

Now, my grandfather was not exactly known far and wide as a patient man. Let’s just say he was not one to suffer fools gladly. That makes it all the more remarkable for me to remember the gentle, reassuring way in which he helped guide me out of that parking space. Together we slowly reversed, and inch by excruciating inch we eased the tank out of the too-narrow parking space, until at last we were free. From my lofty perch on high I heaved a huge sigh of relief and headed for home, victorious. After that even my grandfather began telling people what a good driver I was.

Is it any wonder that I look back on learning to drive the first time around with fondness and nostalgia? It wasn’t without its stressful moments, but on the whole it really was quite pleasant. Just three weeks after my first lesson I took my driving exam and passed. I was able to take my grandparents to Eugene for my grandmother’s appointments, and Grandpa even let me drive the Cadillac. I had crossed the boundary from childhood into the adult world of responsibilities and privileges.

Sadly, learning a new way to drive at forty-six was far from the easy, happy-go-lucky lark it had been when I was sixteen. Overcoming the habits and patterns of thirty years took incredible effort, and my stubborn brain did not want to cooperate. It was quite happy with its existing neural pathways, thank you very much, and didn’t see the point in developing new ones. Nevertheless, it had to be done.

Poor Mr. H took me out the first time. It is a testament to the strength of our relationship that we were both speaking to each other at the end of that lesson, which was a harrowing ordeal for both of us. That evening I wrote the following in my journal:

There is now a new term in my vocabulary which gives me a nervous tic. That term is “biting point”.

My husband tried to explain biting point to me. For my readers who, like me in my former life, have never heard of biting point, this refers to the point at which the plates of the clutch connect as the clutch pedal is released. If you can’t find biting point, you can’t get your car moving in first gear and you’ll stall the engine.

I should, apparently, have been able to feel this, but all I felt was the revving of the engine. The front end of the car would rise up slightly, Mr. H patiently explained. What? An image of the Lone Ranger on the back of his rearing white stallion crying, “Heigh-ho, Silver, away!” flashed through my mind, but nothing seemed to be happening to the front end of the car. Oh, wait! There. No. I stalled it again. Silence.

Finally, after some tears and exasperation (I’ll leave it to you to figure out who was in tears and who was exasperated) I did finally manage to get the car moving forward in first gear. I made a short circuit around the quiet housing estate where we were having this first lesson, but Mr. H kept saying I was too far over to the left, too far over to the left, TOO FAR OVER TO THE LEFT! Well, excuse me; I thought we drove on the left over here. It’s not like I’d run into the curb or driven up on the sidewalk or hit any of the parked cars, had I? But I moved over more toward the middle of the road and shifted from first, to second, and back down to first again.

Ever one to try to find something positive to say, Mr. H commended me on my excellent steering. I snippily pointed out that I’d better be able to steer after driving for nearly thirty years. Steering wasn’t the problem; changing the stupid gears was the problem. I was rapidly developing a mental block against manual transmissions. I mean, really, why are they even still making these cars? Haven’t we progressed beyond this?

My fevered brain was in open rebellion against this new skill that I no longer wanted to develop. I wanted to go back to easy driving, and I wanted to go back right now. After all, I thought, we don’t take our laundry down to the river and beat it against rocks anymore, do we? No, clever people have invented wonderful machines that wash our clothes for us at the touch of a button; and if anyone were to tell us that clothes beaten against rocks are better than clothes washed in a washing machine we’d say they were crazy. So why are cars any different? Clever people have invented cars that change gears for us, so why should I have to push the clutch down, change the gears, let the clutch back up, OH WAIT – a speed bump – push the clutch down, change gears, let the clutch back up, and on and on and on. It was stupid, that’s what it was. Stupid, stupid, stupid, and I didn’t want to do it. I shouldn’t have to do it. Why, why, why did I have to do this?

Mr. H is always blathering about having better control of the car in a manual. It’s all about you driving the car rather than the car driving you. It’s about being at one with the car, having a feel for it like you don’t have in an automatic where all you do is sit there and steer like you’re on a dodgem.

Quite frankly, I think that’s all a bunch of hooey. I have no desire to be “at one” with my car. A car is a tool for getting from point A to point B in relative comfort and safety. I have no more desire to be at one with my car than I do to be at one with my waffle iron, and I like waffles a lot. I want my car to go where I tell it to at the speed I determine, and I don’t want it to break down anywhere along the way; and if I can look good at the same time, all the better. It is my firm conviction that an automatic car is just as capable of doing that job as a manual, and the driver arrives at point B without the aching, creaky knees that the driver of the manual will have.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

We survived the first lesson and four more of that ilk in the following weeks. Each lesson ended with me in tears and with poor Mr. H no doubt counting to ten as he tried to think of the right thing to say that would be a comfort and not incur my wrath. He did well, but at the end of that fifth lesson we agreed that the age of the amateur had passed. I needed professional help.

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Ride along with me next time as I continue the tale of how an American Wife finally got her wheels back.