Driving to California in a parked car
I have always wanted to drive. From the earliest time of realizing I was riding in a car, I have wanted to drive it. Of course when you are a little boy you don’t get to drive, you just get to ride and watch, and imagine yourself driving someday. I usually sat in the back seat of our car behind the driver, and watched over my dad’s or mom’s shoulder to see what they did to make the car go. (Nobody had seat belts in those days.) I also loved to ride in my grandpa’s Chevy pickup, because I could sit in the middle, with the gearshift lever in front of me, and I could watch my grandpa’s every move as he drove.
Our family had mostly Chevy cars and trucks then. In the early 1940s, most cars and trucks were 1930s models, because during World War II no new automobiles were being built. The manufacturers were building trucks, Jeeps, tanks and other equipment for the military. Back then, almost nothing about a car or pickup was automatic. Only around 1949 did we start thinking of the possibility of automatic transmissions; and even then many of us didn’t like them. So, nearly all Chevrolet cars and trucks had a footoperated clutch, a gearshift lever in the middle of the floorboard, a hand choke that had to be set just right to make the engine start and run, a foot-operated starter pedal, and a foot button in the floor to dim and brighten the headlights.
Obviously there were many moves to learn if one was to become a driver. You set the choke, turned on the ignition, pushed down and held the clutch with the left foot, and pressed the starter pedal with your right toe as you pressed the gas pedal with your right heel. To go forward, you shifted the transmission into “low,” gave the engine the gas just right, and gingerly let the clutch engage as you began moving ahead. Then you sped ahead until the engine was going well, pressed in the clutch and let off the accelerator, shifted the transmission into “second” and gingerly reengaged the clutch, giving the engine the gas to accelerate again. Then, if all was going well, you would listen until the engine speed and load was just right, and do the same moves to shift into “high.”
I watched drivers at every opportunity, and on Sunday afternoons, I used to sit in the car, working the brakes and clutch, moving the gearshift, making engine sounds to myself, and pretending I was “driving to California.” There’s no telling how many times I drove to California in a parked car on a Sunday afternoon.
One day when I was about 10 years old, a group of the neighbor men were gathered at the Floyd Walker farm, working in the hay. My granddad’s Chevy pickup was parked near the south end of the field, and I was sitting in the driver’s seat, working the pedals, shifting the gears and pretending to drive. After a time, I saw “Cooper” Williams coming my way. He opened the door on the passenger side, got into the pickup and said, “Jerry, can you drive this thing?” I hadn’t expected that question, but I got out a mumbled answer that sounded something like “Yeah.” And he said, “Well, back it right over there!” He was pointing to the place where I should back it to. I’m thinking, he really means that, “Back it right over there!”
Well I knew the moves; I just had never done them for real. I turned on the ignition, pushed in the clutch, turned my foot sideways as I had seen my folks do to push the gas pedal and the starter pedal at the same time, and the engine roared to life. Oh man, I
gotta make this happen! So, I grabbed the gearshift, shifted into reverse gear, let out the clutch and killed the engine. That was embarrassment city! I was afraid Cooper was seeing that I had never really driven before. But he said, “OK, git ’er goin’ again.” So, I pushed the starter again, revved the engine a little more, eased out on the clutch, and “backed ’er right over there!”
Well, if Cooper Williams knew that I had never driven before, he didn’t let on about it, and he let me go thinking I had done pretty well. After all my imaginary drives to California, that sure was fun, “backin’ the old Chevy right over there!”