It was surprisingly easy, I had the hang of it in a few minutes. I learned in an old VW Beetle with some of my favorite people in the world. I think I reached 40 mph in a church parking lot. Third gear + tight turns was when I started scaring my friends.
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Why is your specific memory special? How often have you used the skill since? Have you stayed in touch with the person who taught you?
On the Christmas morning of my 17th year, my parents gave me a gift to open. I unwrapped the small box and found a set of keys. We were temporarily living in a condo while my parents finalized the purchase of a home. My dad said to go in the condos parking lot and find my car. I first went up to sports cars; Mustangs, Corvettes etc. -no luck. Then I tried SUV's and trucks. -again, no luck. I think I tried every car until I reached the last one, it was an old, rusty, hatched back, white Chevy Nova. It was a stick shift and it was mine. I loved it. I hadn't driven a stick before but my dad gave me a quick lesson and I pretended I knew exactly what I was doing. Later that day I drove the family to my grandparents house in my new ride. We got to the intersection of Main St and Grand River (busiest in our small town) and I stalled it. Right in the center of the intersection I sat stalled. I couldn't get her going again for what seemed like forever. It was Embarassing but eventually she started up and moved forward. I loved that car. Wrote a song about it on my first album titled "Rusty Nova." -good times, thanks for the memory.
I learned to drive stick in my Dad's 1983 Jeep Laredo CJ7. Dad taught me in two phases. Phase one came when our big black lab, Murphy, was in need of a run. We'd grab the dog, jump in the jeep, Dad driving, and head toward some new subdivision developments a couple of miles away that were only developed as far as the streets. On the way, I'd have a lesson at every stop and start. How to depress the clutch and release it in the proper gear slowly, but not too slow. Even a glimpse of the advanced downshift maneuver. Something reserved for a relative expert. We'd get to the subdivision, Dad and the dog would hop out. We'd have the doors off the Jeep so I could better hear his feedback. He'd then send me toward a cul-de-sac in order to work through the first three gears at least. I'd drive back and then, after listening to my shift points, would provide me with feedback about watching the tachometer and that I should ease off the gas a bit more here or there. It was great. On top of that, it turned out I was safer driving a manual transmission. For the first year or more of driving, I found that while driving Mom's Pontiac with an automatic transmission, I would daydream a bit and lose track of my immediate surroundings. With the manual transmission of the Jeep, I was required to be cognizant of my transmission, and that I was more mindful of my surroundings. A bonus, was that the Jeep was a much cooler set of wheels to drive.
I'm a firm believer that everyone should remember their first bike crash. Mine was great. I was around four and it was probably about the first time I'd ever been allowed on the bike without someone walking alongside me (didn't have training wheels). I promptly took to the streets, forgot how to brake, managed to find a driveway with about five feet of elevation and went down the fucking thing head over heels. It was fantastic, and foreshadowing, because I spent the next eight years of my life crashing that bike in every other part of the neighborhood.
I don't remember my first bike crash, but I sure remember parts of the one I had Memorial Day of 2004. I finally started to feel free, the wind blowing around my hair, getting my braces off in two days, I was overjoyed to finally be rid of those things, and it was an absolutely drop dead gorgeous day. There is a high school by my house, and a track right behind it. It leads to a cul-de-sac. The school doesn't want people driving up to the track from the cul-de-sac, so they put 3 large poles in the way. Bikes fit through just great though. I had been riding around there with a few neighborhood friends. The high school was on a hill, so you could go flying down the hill, go on the s-curve and be hidden from view behind the shed before flying past the poles. Well I wanted to show off my new found skill to my parents. We all rode our bikes to the school, and sitting at the top of the hill, I told them to wait until I said they could go. Pedaling away as fast as I could on my little blue bike, I zoomed towards the s-curve and took it like a champion. Then came the poles. No sweat, I've done this dozens of times. Next thing I know, I'm laying on the ground, a shit-ton of pain is coming from my face, and my bike is far away from me. My mom slowly comes through the poles and comes rushing to me. By this time, I am a bloody mess. We get to the house, .25 miles away, and my mom sits me in the sink and starts to wash me off. I ask "what happened, did I fall off my bike?" My mom then starts flipping out, while I, having no idea why, am watching her yelling to my dad to start the car. Off to the hospital. Normally, when you get to a hospital, there's a queue that people have to wait for. Not me! They give me a bucket and a towel. I hold the towel to my face to stop the blood and the bucket under me to catch any blood I miss. A few minutes later, ICU! They lay me down and start scanning me. MRI, CAT scans, the whole shebang. Initially, they thought I was leaking spinal fluid from my nose. Warm up the helicopter. Nope, new guess. This is the maxillary bone. I broke this bone. Kill the helicopter, and put me in an ambulance. Rush me what would normally be an hour long ride in ~30 minutes to a newer, better hospital. By this time, it's midnight, a solid 8 hours after my mishap. They tell my parents, who are still freaking out as my teeth are sort of randomly placed in my mouth being held together by some braces, that a doctor is coming. Three hours later, the guy finally shows up. I've finally stopped crying, and my parents have changed their worry to anger at this guy not showing up for 3 freaking hours. So at 3 AM this guy finally shows up. He shoots my gums with anesthesia, and says he is going to try to push my teeth back in. This works just about as well as you think it would. Not at all. So at 3:30, we get in a car and drive back home. 4:30 AM I can finally sleep. The next day, I go to a doctor who is a professional in this sort of thing. They knock me out and start to work on my mouth. When I wake up a few hours later, I have a splint holding my teeth together. I can't eat solids for 6 weeks, just milkshakes and water. I also can't brush my teeth, I'm only allowed to use mouthwash. Then, I can slowly nurse my mouth to full food through applesauce, mashed potatoes, and the like. My teeth are no longer straight, so we my parents take me back to an orthodontist, but he cannot promise my teeth will stay in. Today, my teeth still have nice gaps, I have had two root canals, and my teeth are expected to die in the next few years. However, they're all still real, I can eat real food, and I still ride my bike (even if it took me a year and a half to build up the courage to actually ride the death trap again.)
First off, ouch. I cringed several times during that story; it makes you sound like a total badass, though. I'm the son of a dental hygienist, and just imaging your teeth after the accident...shudder. I think we all need to see a picture of your teeth now.
Yeah, but it was also 10 years ago. I used to have a nice scar on my upper lip, but it has since faded. But if you look closely, my teeth are off center by a lot. My bottom right front tooth is directly under the gap for the top two.
The lady that first taught me how to swim now works at a grocery store near my parent's house. From what I recall, swimming lessons were done early in the morning before school, starting in spring and held in the concrete WPA era pool that is now being torn up to make way for a modern pool with better filtration. I think I was six. It was shortly after pre-school, which I remember because I was able to take swimming lessons with two of my friends from pre-school who went to other elementary schools in the district. At that time of the morning it was often foggy and the shaggy trees surrounding the pool dropped needles and helicopter seeds into the dark green water, which smelled more of pond and less of chlorine. We'd practice kicking in the "guppy" section of the pool and wear styrofoam "bubbles" strapped to our backs to practice bobbing in the "whale" section of the pool, where a dangerous looking diving board was located. After swimming lessons, my dad would give us juice boxes and feed us cheese curls before dropping us off at school. I guess this is a fond memory because I've always liked swimming. And cheese curls. I'm still a strong swimmer and whenever I do bobs in the pool I feel like I'm six again.
I googled cheese curl because I've only ever heard of cheese puffs -- and the top result was urban dictionary and because I hate myself I clicked on it and now I feel weird. Anyway. The lesson is that I gave up on DDG again too quickly. Its top result was amazon.
I guess I should have specified. As far as urban dictionary "moves" the cheese curl isn't so bad, though it is kind of weird that it specifies "the nearest broad". All I'm saying is that the nearest anything is often not the one you might want, given the luxury of choice, but I digress. Haven't used DDG and honestly I forgot about it. I'll give it a try.