Dad didn’t trust automatic shift cars. Too many things to go wrong, he insisted. So even after taking driver’s ed one summer in Earlham, and even passing the written and driving tests (including parallel parking), I couldn’t drive either car at home. (The family car, or the last family car that was now Dad’s “pickup.”)
I’ve already written about learning to shift gears in the farm yard, so here’s what happened after I could finally drive the Chevy well enough:
Mom could stay home to get meals if I’d drive to Dexter (four miles up graveled Old Creamery Road) with no money to shop at Blohm’s (Dad’s relatives’ store, where we charged groceries) and get a quart of nails at the lumber yard (“Are you Bill’s girl or Warrren’s,” Gib asked. “They’re the only two who buy nails by the quart.” He added the nails to Warren’s bill.)
Dad rented acreages in two other counties (Dallas and Guthrie), in addition to our farm in Madison County. That meant government papers that needed to be signed and returned each the county seat. Sometimes I’d have to locate Dad in a field, flag him down for a signature, but then I’d happily head to Guthrie Center or Adel or Winterset to file the documents.
One time Dad needed parts for the combine, so he sent all the way to Grand Junction for them. The farthest I’d driven by myself.
Tire-changer
Being able to drive also freed up the folks from taking us sisters to choir practice in Dexter or band practice in Earlham. I drove Gloria and me and sometimes other neighborhood kids. I also became the family tire changer. Mom, Gloria, and I would find the car in the garage with a flat tire fairly often–country roads and farmsteads.
Mom would be wearing a dress and Gloria was much smaller. So, I learned to change tires. In those days, the jack was fairly straight forward to use (unlike the one we had for a VW bug), and the lug wrench handy. The hardest part was pulling off the hefty flat tire and fitting the spare, which was full-sized in 1960.
We’d take the flat tire with us in the trunk, drop it off at the local gas station for patching, and many times pick it up after shopping It usually had a nail in it.
I vowed I’d never marry a farmer
I never mastered driving a tractor, and the folks steered both of us sisters toward college. I’d already determined I’d marry a farmer after watching Mom, who was not a farm girl before marriage, sew up a baby piggie in the back room after the mother sow stepped on it.
Favorite Guy also grew up on a farm, but both farms (an hour apart) were both too small to make a go of it, and he’d decided he also didn’t want to farm.
But how handy it still is for the whole family when a farm kid is old enough for a driver’s license. I wonder just how difficult it is to change a flat tire these days.
This is too funny… when I got my permit, our family car was a stick shift Chevy Nova, and poppa tried his best, but I burned the clutch out in a heartbeat. Needless to say, I could never drive that car…
Is that when your dad bought an automatic? Dad waited until my younger sister was in college. A few years later they even got an air conditioned car.
I also vowed never to marry a farmer after growing up on one and seeing what farm wife had to do. Not for me! Dad despaired trying to teach me to drive as did my first husband. But Paul, the guy I’ve been maried to for almost 50 years, bought me driving lessons. He knew better than to try hinself!!
Darlene, thanks for sharing your delightful story!
I never mastered the stick shift even to this day.
They’re easier to shift these days, Denise, but I wouldn’t want to go back to one.
Gosh, it would be frustrating to have a driver’s license but not be able to drive the family cars. Did your dad ever change his opinion on automatics?
Pete, as soon as both daughters were gone, he bought an automatic (used, of course) and later even bought one with air conditioning!
I learned on a stick shift, which turned out to be a helpful skill over the years. I remember thinking I would never get it right, but once I did, I really enjoyed it!
Thanks, Lori. I enjoyed it through our VW Jetta (which our son learned to shift gears in), but then was happy with an automatic after that. (An now that my right shoulder has been replaced, automatic is even better!)
Great memories, Joy! Thanks for sharing them. The hubster and I wouldn’t let our daughter get her DL until she learned to drive a stick and learned to change a tire. The stick-thing came in handy several years later when a college friend got intoxicated at a party, and our daughter had to drive the young woman’s car back to the campus.
Priscilla, great parenting! And your daughter became a “designated driver,” or at least a back up! Our son learned on our VW Jetta, which was our last stick-shift, but I don’t know if he learned tire-changing or not. Guess I’ll ask him.
I love every bit of this, Joy! And your dad’s wisdom: …”didn’t trust automatic shift cars. Too many things to go wrong…” matches what I’d often hear from my own papa about fancy gadgets, etc. Too many ways for things with extra whooz-its or whats-its to go wrong! Thanks for the big grin this afternoon! 😊💝😊
Bless you, Vicki!
Love you, Joy! 💝💝💝
I learned to drive on manual transmissions. I thought they were a lot of fun. Most kids I knew were driving at age 10-12, just not on the highways.
That X wrench is so much better than the one √ that came with most cars. You could both pull and push doubling the torque to loosen those nuts.
Thanks, Jim! The wrench was easy enough even for a girl!
I had stick-shift autos for what felt like forever. My last was a six-speed in 1988. Car companies started charging for them, and I went to automatics since then. Fun story, Joy.
Thanks, John. When my Favorite Guy set out for a certain older Corvette, he wanted a stick shift and found one!
This is exactly what my dad always said!
“Dad didn’t trust automatic shift cars. Too many things to go wrong, he insisted.”
Somehow Dad changed his mind once both daughters were gone. . .
🙂
I Love this story. I don’t even remember how I learned to drive a stick shift! But I can.
Your dad was smart! The other day when Bob had to take his 7-speed Corvette in for something, he had to drive it in to the bay for the guy because he couldn’t drive a stick Now, Corvette no longer make them: Everything is automatic!
And both our granddaughters in Virginia Beach purchased jeeps with stick shifts.
Wow, a stick shift family! Did you learn in the farm yard? When Guy set out for that certain older Corvette, it needed to be a stick, and he found it! That “adoption” was out of the Twin Cities.
We had a 1958 Chevy like yours, but I think the color of ours was a sick-looking green and a puke white (😆). My older brother totaled it the day after he got his driver’s license. He wasn’t injured. Those big old boats didn’t have seat belts, but there was a lot of metal between you and the object you collided with. 😁
Oh wow, gravel road? Yes, no seat belts. I forget when cars began to require them.
No, it was a paved city road. My brother had picked up his friend, they were horsing around, and he wrecked the car. 🚓🫢
Oh my.
I learned to drive a stick early on and always had standard transmissions until about 1999 when my left knee got bothersome. Nice not to deal with a clutch, but I enjoyed driving the older cars. My mom thought she wanted to marry a farmer, but I can’t imagine her living like that! She married an Army man instead and got to travel.
A farmer would be okay if he owned enough land to make a decent living, but there’s always the weather. When Favorite Guy was in the Air Force we knew what day the check would arrived and how much. Farming?
Very interesting, Joy! 😍 A few months after I got my driver’s license in 1966, I bought a 1964 Chevy Bel Air with a stick shift and bucket seats. I kept it for about a year, sold it when I joined the Army to a man buying it for his boy.
Favorite Guy’s first car was a 1963 Chevy Biscane, bought in 1966. Yes, Stick shift.
😍
There was something very satisfying about driving a standard.
My first novel includes a story based on my first time driving a stick shift. My father bought a car from his sister. He took me to get it. It was a standard. I told him I didn’t know how to drive a standard. He told me I would before I got home.
Hurrah for your dad! For our son, we needed a few turns at a neighborhood stop sign that’s on a little hill to finish the job!