bluetyger

A long time ago when I was very young I read “A Death in the Family” by James Agee and decided that when I grew up I wanted to write a book. I remember writing a composition in Grade 6 that was 28 pages in an exercise book about Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo (the men from U.N.C.L.E.). I am 53 years of age and although I have scratched out some 400 poems over the years, the 28 page barrier remains the high water mark of my prose fiction output. So it is time to break that barrier.

I bought a VW Golf Diesel a few years ago and took some lessons from a driving teacher to learn how to drive the manual transmission. I was in my forties.

Had to get a fourth lesson to practice how to handle starting from a stopped position near the top of a hill or hilly street. Defeating rollback is probably the toughest part of driving stick. And the way to master that is practice, practice, practice.

Why bother learning stick? I think it makes you more aware of all the traffic and the road situation as you drive since you have to down shift and up shift. You are forced to pay closer attention and if you are more alert than you are safer.

Fuel economy: manual transmission cars are easier on fuel. I drove that Golf to New Brunswick from Toronto twice, and to Houston TX from Toronto twice. Great to cruise along and pay less.

Travel: rented a stick shift car in Ireland for two weeks, immensely less expensive to rent than an automatic transmission car.