Getting By in a Clutch

My wife and I were lying in bed one Saturday morning with the blackout curtains drawn. We were trying to coax one more hour of sleep off the clock before starting the day. It had been an exhausting week. Down the street I heard a car engine start and the engine rev. Then I heard the sound which has frustrated every dad who has ever taught a child to drive since the first car came off Henry Ford’s production line: grind, grind, grind!

“Come on babe. Put the clutch pedal all the way down.”

I could just see in my mind what was going on in that car. Finally after the third grind, she got the car into first gear only to pop the clutch and kill the engine. The engine was restarted and after one very long grind, the transmission went into gear and the car started rolling our way. About three houses from ours, another series of grinds put the car into 2nd gear followed by the grand finale of grinds going into third as she rolled past our bedroom window.

My wife’s eyes were wide open staring at me.

“What the heck?” she asked me like I was somehow responsible.

“It’s Gridley’s 16-year-old daughter. She’s learning how to drive a stick to get herself to work. Gridley must enjoy working on clutches.” But who am I to judge her? We have all been there if you were lucky enough to learn how to drive with a manual transmission vehicle.

My dad started me out when I was 16, teaching me to drive his company trucks and Korean War vintage Willys Jeep, all of which had manual transmissions. And don’t think for a moment we had synchromesh transmissions which help the engine and the transmission gears line up, so they don’t grind. No, these were ancient vehicles with side mirrors which flopped down while you drove so you could never really tell if it was safe to change lanes. These were vehicles with no heaters, no window handles which worked and most had broken springs in the bench seat. Don’t get me started on the wipers either.

Let’s define a grinding transmission like this: “griiind!” A popped clutch: “whip” and a down shift as: “whing ding-ding-ding.”

Now, dad is sitting next to me teaching me how to drive one of the antique monsters:

“Ok, now that the engine is running, and you are in neutral; I want you to push in the clutch pedal with your left foot while holding the truck brakes down with your right foot and pull the stick into gear number one .”

“Griiind!”

“Darn it! Ok, give the throttle a shot of gas and push in the clutch again. You’ve got to push the clutch in twice, it’s called double-clutching.”

“Griiind” (The stick goes into first gear.)

“Ok, now take your right foot off the brake and slowly add some throttle while you are also letting off the clutch pedal.”

“Whip! Screech, screech!”

“Darn it! I dumped my coffee all over my lap and banged my head on the back window twice. Ok, now that it’s rolling we are going to put it into second gear. Push the clutch in twice, the first to pull the stick out of first and the second to put it into second gear. Comprende?”

“Griiind! Clunk!”

“Ok, that’s how that works. Now do the same thing to go into third gear.”

“Whing ding-ding-ding!”

“Darn it! You put it back in first. I said third! I just bumped my nose on the dash and dumped the rest of my coffee on my shoes! Pull over I’m driving home!”

And so it went with each lesson being a little less painful for dad. He even introduced me to the two-speed rear end which makes a four-speed into an eight-speed transmission or as I found out, makes about a quarter mile of transmission parts on the freeway.

My first car was a Chevy Vega which had, as you guessed, a manual transmission. By that time, I understood the theory and the principles of driving a stick. The last thing to learn on my list was how to take off from a stop on a hill. Someone can explain to you the idea, but you must go out and make it work by yourself.

The first way I tried taking off from a stop on a hill was to leave the car in first gear and hold it on the hill by letting the clutch out part way. This is called slipping a clutch, smoking a clutch, or burning up a clutch, but it does work for a short time.

Then, one of my peers informed me that the proper technique was to take the car out of gear and hold the vehicle on the hill with the brake. When you are ready to move again, use the clutch to put the transmission in first gear, move the foot from the brake to the throttle and add throttle while you let out on the clutch.

This worked well for me when I was in Nampa Idaho for my first year of college. The streets in Nampa go down and under the railroad tracks and go back up on the other side to meet the next cross street which many times will have an intersection light. It was a Sunday at 1:30 pm when, while driving my Vega, I dropped down under the railroad tracks and up the other side only to find a red light at the intersection. I stopped the car and put the transmission in neutral nervously watching as cars pulled in behind me.

Large drops of perspiration formed on my forehead and were dripping off my nose and fogging my glasses as I awaited the green light, knowing I would be the first to enter the intersection from the hill. Think Mitchell, think. How do I take off from a hill? I set the parking brake. The light turned green! Cars were honking! I let off the parking brake. The clutch was pushed in, I moved my foot quickly from the floor brake to the throttle revving the engine and let out the clutch.

I hadn’t put the car in gear. Though the engine made an impressive roar, the car rolled backwards into a sedan filled with seniors coming home from church. What to do? Panic! Put the car in gear and run for it! Thankfully I didn’t have to worry about rolling backwards since the grill of the car behind me was holding me quite nicely. I squealed the car tires up to the intersection and immediately turned right and was now going the wrong way on a one way street. Perfect. At least they didn’t follow me.

Truth be known, my learning curve graph has always looked like the Fury 325 roller coaster in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is because concepts are hard for me to learn in a short period of time and I usually end up crashing and burning.

My first three speed bike is a great example of this. In middle school I claimed independence by riding the bike into town whenever I needed my freedom. The learning curve was the two additional gears I wasn’t used to. I can remember stopping at an intersection without shifting down from third gear to first. Several girls in my class stood on the corner waiting, as I was, for the light to change. Upon seeing the light turn green, I stood up on the pedals to start pumping. Since the bike was in third gear instead of first, the bike went nowhere but I shot up into the air on the pedals, nearly losing my grip of the handlebars. This caught the eyes of the girls on the sidewalk. To get the bike rolling, I moved the shifter from third to first which caused the chain to jump the sprocket, freewheeling the pedals thereby causing me to come down on the center bar of the bike which began my singing career with the Vienna Boys Choir. After that, it was a hop, skip and a jump (not necessarily in that order) over the front of the handle bars and onto the road. The sound of giggling girls still haunts me to this day. My ego and several body parts were bruised. Gradually though, I progressed from the three-speed to the twenty-one-speed bike and I also grew accustomed to manually shifting car and truck transmissions.

No sir, I can’t laugh at Gridley’s daughter. Been there and done that. I also think it should be one of the rights of passage for every young person to learn how to drive a manual transmission vehicle. This is exactly why six months ago when my granddaughter came to me and asked for me to teach her to drive, I said, “Sure babe. Let’s go find you a nice little automatic transmission vehicle.”

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