Friday, April 1, 2011

Death of the stickshift

Yesterday I drove Josh to the airport in his car. He now is in Austin, TX where it is a toasty 90 degrees.Just as he was gtting out of the car, he said that he hoped that his car will still have a clutch when he returns.

How soon they forget! Who taught him how to drive a stick in the first place? When I was learning to drive, it was on a stick and on one that did NOT have sychromesh transmission.  What is that, you may ask? Well if the car does not have it, you can not downshift into first unless you are completely stopped.But soon in the US even the econocars won't have manual transmissions and there will be little reason for kids to know how to drive one. As it is, Josh is the only kid of mine that can drive one though I did try to teach Shanna how to drive one. Most of his friends can drive one because a lot of them were valets along with him in high school.He especially liked valeting in my grandfather's old neighborhood as he got to drive plenty of fancy cars.But in Europe, still most cars have manual transmissions. When he worked in Germany last summer, the company gave them a car to drive around which did not have an automatic transmission. His co-workers, older men and car guys, could drive it.

He had asked me to go and entertain Sunny as she was not going to be relieved for a long period otherwise due to Julia working so much and going to school.

Throw the ball, throw the ball..please throw the ball.

If Sunny could talk, that's what she'd say. Fortunately Josh got this ball with a short cord on it that I could fling for  a greater distance than without it (I am a poor thrower) and bonus, I don't have to touch the gross ball.

After she was suitably entertained, I tried to start his car. It wouldn't start.Finally I remembered that I needed to depress the clutch before anything happened. Don't tell him.

On to Happy Hour....

I could hear the peepers this morning as I ran along with the trills of the red-winged blackbirds. The temp was only 27 but it was calm and sunny so it felt much warmer. Probably much nicer than the nor'easter besieging Shanna but not as toasty as Josh in Austin.

Ms. Maya is 9 months today. She is standing for by herself for a few seconds and saying, "hi".

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