Chapter Twenty-Three: You Betcha

I would never have thought a comment by Sarah Palin would stir my memory of Taylor’s first driving lesson, but when the governor of Alaska said one of her catchphrase “You betchas,” I suddenly remembered the first driving lesson I gave to Taylor. The mind is certainly a funny place.

Taylor was a few months short of her 16th birthday and she had her driver’s permit in hand. It was the day to give Taylor her first lesson on the art of the stick shift and the driving of “Tammy Tercel,” the 1991 car she so coveted. She referred to Tammy as “the Turtle” which I guess was okay since Taylor was the one who first dubbed the Tercel “Tammy.” It is an idiosyncrasy of mine, passed down from my eccentric mother who drove “Bertha the Buick” and other alliterative autos over the years. So the kids had seen their father name “Daphne Dodge” and when “Daphne” finally clunked out, I went out and purchased a new Tercel. “Daphne” was so beat, however, they wouldn’t even give me $50 on a trade-in. So I took “Daphne” home and promptly sold her for $200 to a Freddy-Fix-It type who kept “Daphne” on the road for another two years. Where was the “Cash for Clunkers” program when I needed it?

I remember my first chance to drive a stick shift on the hill of Locust Lane in Springfield, PA. My older brother Tom stopped his VW bug (the old-fashioned kind without the fuel gauge but with the emergency gas tank) on the hill, put on the parking brake, and told me to switch seats. So we rolled back to the bottom of the hill a few times, but then I got the feel of the clutch and we were off. The problem for Taylor, I thought, was an absence of spiffy hills on which to practice holding the car in place while getting the “feel” of the clutch.

At the time, Taylor had, on occasion, taken her mom’s car out for a joy ride or two. It was a rite of passage among Pam’s kids, drive mom’s car before you actually had a license. So Taylor was familiar with the steering, but not the stick shift.

Years before I had taught my oldest step-daughter Tracey how do drive a stick shift and Tracey, the girls’ big sister and surrogate mother, had wound up teaching the H pattern to the twins and Courtney, but Tracey was off living her life in Richmond, Virginia, and the job had reverted to me once again.

“Let the clutch out slowly,” I advised Taylor.

Kerplunkkkkk! Kerplunkkkkk! The car stalled.

“More ah slowly,” I suggested.

“Sorry, Dad,” she replied.

“Try it again.”

She turned the ignition, giving it the eerie screech. Then it was, Kerplunkkkkk! Kerplunkkkk!

“Slower, Taylor, slower!”

“I’m trying, Dad. I’m trying.”

“Did I ever tell you how Uncle Tom taught me the stick shift?”

“A million times, Dad.”

“Oh.”

“I think I’m getting it, Dad,” she said. “It’s a feel isn’t it?”

“Yes!”

Magic does happen. Taylor let the clutch out slowly. The car didn’t jerk, it moved smoothly.

In first gear.

“Now what?” Taylor asked me, a bit bewildered.

“Second gear,” I replied. “Time to learn the gear pattern, just say H. It’s an H pattern.”

Second gear was not as difficult as first gear and after a bit of gear grinding she discovered second and we stayed in second gear and a solid 15 miles per hour as she drove us around the neighborhood. Linus might have his security blanket but Taylor had second gear. I was pleased with myself that I hadn’t sworn once, and Taylor successfully returned the car to the driveway, a smile of satisfaction on her face and not even a scratch on the chrome.

“You’re a good teacher, Dad,” she told me.

“I had a great student,” I replied, joining the mutual admiration society which Taylor had started.

“We are a great team, aren’t we Dad?”

“You betcha, kid. You betcha.”

Maybe I can tell her now what I didn’t tell her then: she picked up the concept of the clutch much quicker than I had back on Locust Lane, but I suppose she knows that now.

You betcha I do, Pops. You betcha!