Back when I was a teenager when we took Driver’s Ed, we didn’t get to drive a car with an automatic transmission like they do today. We had to drive a car that had a manual transmission.

The summer before I turned 15, I had already taken the class part of the Driver’s Ed course but I still needed to take the driving part of the course. I was working in peaches that summer and after I got home from work one evening, my Driver’s Ed teacher called. He said he would pick me and two of my co-workers up the next day at the peach pack house so we could start the driving part of the course. Of course I said that was fine. I didn’t tell him, but the only problem with the plan was the fact that I had never driven a stick shift before. You see I grew up around farmers and farm equipment but I had never driven a tractor or anything else that had a straight drive transmission. I had three brothers and they were the ones who drove stuff like that – not the girl in the family.

When my daddy got home from work, Mama told him about the teacher calling and that I was supposed to start driving the next day. After we ate supper, Daddy told my brother Mike to take me out in his old work truck and teach me how to drive it. You see that old truck had a manual transmission. The gear shift was on the column. I guess Daddy figured he didn’t have enough patience after a hard day’s work to try and teach me how to change gears!

So off Mike and I go in Daddy’s truck (with him driving, of course) out to the road beside our house. We lived way out in the boonies, so we didn’t have to worry about me getting pulled over for driving without a license. Mike then proceeded to demonstrate how to press in on the clutch; put the truck in gear; and then let the clutch out as you give it some gas.

Then we traded places and it was my turn. The problem was, my mind knew what to do, but my feet and my mind didn’t seem to work together very well. The first time I choked the truck down and so I restarted the engine as Mike told me “Let out on the clutch as you give it some gas.” So I tried again and this time the truck hopped like a bunny and then choked down. Mike told me (a little louder this time) “Give it some gas as you let out the clutch.” The same thing happened a couple more times with Mike getting a little louder each time telling me “Give it some gas. Give it some gas.” So the next time I went to take off, I made sure I gave it plenty of gas as I let out on the clutch. I succeeded really well that time because I popped the clutch and gave it so much gas that the tires squealed as I took off!!

Well, I thought Mike’s eyes were gonna pop right out of his head. He said “Stop the truck. Stop the truck.” So I stopped the truck and he got out. I didn’t know what he was doing out there. When he got back in; however, he was laughing his head off. He said “You left a black streak 20 feet long. I kept telling you to give it some gas and you sure did what I told you to do that last time you took off. Maybe we’d better not tell Daddy about it though!!!”

However; I think he must have told everybody else we knew and that black streak must have gotten longer and longer with each telling. Anyway, by the time the story got back to me, I held the state record for the longest black streak in history!!!