Hah, I edited out half of my post because I thought "that's going to get the thread moved to PCA..."
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Scary school film from 1952
- Thread starter MoodyBlues
- Start date
Trust me--I know what you mean.Hah, I edited out half of my post because I thought "that's going to get the thread moved to PCA..."
So, speaking of the '50s...I'm recording something tonight [on TCM] called The Corvair in Action!
My very first experience driving a stick-shift vehicle was with a borrowed Corvair. I was 18. My husband and I were both working full-time, but we only had one car. I got up in the middle of my night to drive him to work, then tried to go back to sleep until my time to get up came. I learned to drive on, and only drove, automatics
Until our car broke down.
We couldn't afford to get it fixed right away. But a kind friend offered us the use of his spare car, a 3-speed, manual transmission Corvair--with 2nd gear missing.
My husband taught me the basics one night; the next morning, I was on my own. I didn't get stick-shifts then--that happened a few years later. You know how you just KNOW when to up- or downshift, how you don't need to look at the tachometer or speedometer, you just feel it? Yeah, I didn't have that back then.
It was awful. I turned right at a corner, and was immediately faced with a small [and I mean SMALL] hill. Going from a dead-stop, I didn't have any speed up yet...and not truly knowing what I was doing...and having no 2nd gear, guess what happened? Yep, I rolled backward down the hill...in morning rush hour traffic. I remember wanting to cry, but I don't know if I did or not.
I eventually got up the hill. We had our car fixed soon afterward and I was happily back to driving an automatic. Until I wasn't. I don't know how to explain this, given my one very bad, brief stint driving a stick, but a few years later I declared my next car would be a stick. It was. As were all of my future vehicles.
I got it--and never wanted to go back. Something about the hum of the engine, and you know you're really in control, it's just fun. I could, and have, easily taken on some of the steepest roads in the world, with ease. Using the clutch and gears going up and down mountains...there's nothing else like it!
My very first experience driving a stick-shift vehicle was with a borrowed Corvair. I was 18. My husband and I were both working full-time, but we only had one car. I got up in the middle of my night to drive him to work, then tried to go back to sleep until my time to get up came. I learned to drive on, and only drove, automatics
Until our car broke down.We couldn't afford to get it fixed right away. But a kind friend offered us the use of his spare car, a 3-speed, manual transmission Corvair--with 2nd gear missing.
My husband taught me the basics one night; the next morning, I was on my own. I didn't get stick-shifts then--that happened a few years later. You know how you just KNOW when to up- or downshift, how you don't need to look at the tachometer or speedometer, you just feel it? Yeah, I didn't have that back then.
It was awful. I turned right at a corner, and was immediately faced with a small [and I mean SMALL] hill. Going from a dead-stop, I didn't have any speed up yet...and not truly knowing what I was doing...and having no 2nd gear, guess what happened? Yep, I rolled backward down the hill...in morning rush hour traffic. I remember wanting to cry, but I don't know if I did or not.
I eventually got up the hill. We had our car fixed soon afterward and I was happily back to driving an automatic. Until I wasn't. I don't know how to explain this, given my one very bad, brief stint driving a stick, but a few years later I declared my next car would be a stick. It was. As were all of my future vehicles.
I got it--and never wanted to go back. Something about the hum of the engine, and you know you're really in control, it's just fun. I could, and have, easily taken on some of the steepest roads in the world, with ease. Using the clutch and gears going up and down mountains...there's nothing else like it!
Root canal comes close, though.
I get the (false) sense of control driving a manual transmission. It's like the (false) sense of security you get from knowing "what to do" in the event of a nuclear attack.
I learned to drive stick in a '62 VW Beetle ... all 40 H.P. If you could get that up a hill from a dead stop without stalling, it was like snatching the pebble from a Kung Fu master's hand. All my subsequent vehicles were stick until my son was born and I got a minivan (didn't we already have this conversation?) I don't think there's any economic or performance advantage any more to stick over auto, except in the area of repair.
@MoodyBlues , @Hadron I don't see anything that would be P&CA worthy in the discussion. Rolling your (virtual) eyes at history deniers -- be it school shootings, lunar landings, the Holocaust , etc. -- or science deniers like anti vaxxers, COVID conspiracy theorists, flat earthers, etc. is Lampoon, like much of the "news" has become. As long as it's not targeted at any individual or written to simply incense others, then reasonable discussion is okay.
That said, you and I know they are silly and their beliefs are questionable, and that nothing we can say here will change those beliefs. But, let's not go there anyway (unless it's really funny).
Thanks, @lunatic59. I think we were concerned with what we DIDN'T say!
As for [false] sense of control, driving a stick, I just disagree. For me, it's a very real sense. For example, coming down from 6,000' up, knowing that if my brakes failed, I could use the clutch and gears to control my descent, that's real!
It's all a moot point now anyway.
As for [false] sense of control, driving a stick, I just disagree. For me, it's a very real sense. For example, coming down from 6,000' up, knowing that if my brakes failed, I could use the clutch and gears to control my descent, that's real!
It's all a moot point now anyway.
Not moot for me - hire cars in the US are the only times I've ever driven automatic (which will only change when charging infrastructure here reaches the point where I feel we can go purely electric).
I meant moot for me. I don't drive any more. [Thanks, sepsis!] Driving has had always been one of my passions. 
My daughter moaned and bitched about having to learn how to drive on stick shift vehicles: 'all my friends have automatics.' We told her, 'well, if you want to drive OUR cars, you'll have to learn stick!' She did. I taught her, and it was painless. Later, when she lived in England, and traveled around the globe, she was so happy she knew how to drive manual transmissions.
When she lived in San Francisco, she didn't have a car [really didn't need one], but on occasion borrowed her then-boyfriend's car. You guessed it--a stick shift! She's handled some of the steepest roads in the world with ease.
My daughter moaned and bitched about having to learn how to drive on stick shift vehicles: 'all my friends have automatics.' We told her, 'well, if you want to drive OUR cars, you'll have to learn stick!' She did. I taught her, and it was painless. Later, when she lived in England, and traveled around the globe, she was so happy she knew how to drive manual transmissions.
When she lived in San Francisco, she didn't have a car [really didn't need one], but on occasion borrowed her then-boyfriend's car. You guessed it--a stick shift! She's handled some of the steepest roads in the world with ease.
I'm not that old but I remember watching JFK being shot and Johnson's "Daisy" political ad during my childhood.
You know, it's the weirdest thing--I have vivid, verified for accuracy by my mother, memories from 3-years-old...but ZERO memory of the day Kennedy was killed, and I was *cough* older then.
I know he was pronounced dead at about 11:00am [LA time], but I have no memory of that day at all--like were we in school? Did they announce it? Oddly, I have very clear memories of his funeral procession--especially the riderless horse, with boots turned backward in the stirrups. But zip from the 22nd.
By the way, I always associated Dallas and November 22nd with that horrible event. Who knew that in 2004 I'd be living in [a] Dallas [suburb] and would find my little bundle of joy, Joy Noelle, on November 22nd?
JFK was assassinated on a school day. My teacher told the class the tragic news and school was let out early. There wasn't a school wide announcement of his death. I'm guessing it was decided that the news would be best told by a parent for the younger grades.
That matches up, @olbriar, with what my husband--who is 7 years older than me--says. He says the school announced it, which would've been some time after 2:30pm [Florida time], and they were sent home immediately.
I can't explain why I have zero recall from that day, yet clearly remember the days after...
I can't explain why I have zero recall from that day, yet clearly remember the days after...
Perhaps, subconsciously, you have that memory blocked. Not a bad thing. It was a dark day for the USA.That matches up, @olbriar, with what my husband--who is 7 years older than me--says. He says the school announced it, which would've been some time after 2:30pm [Florida time], and they were sent home immediately.
I can't explain why I have zero recall from that day, yet clearly remember the days after...
I think it was a catholic holiday, ironically or I was to young for school.
Anything,
I'm glad stuff like that hasn't happened recently.
Anything,
I'm glad stuff like that hasn't happened recently.
You're probably right. It's just that I'm kind of known for my memory [which drives certain people crazy], so it's bugged me all these years that that one day is a complete blank.
I distinctly remember watching the funeral procession on our old black and white console TV and feeling sad and confused as the caisson went down Pennsylvania Avenue, but I don't remember anything before that. The funeral was 3 days after JFK was assassinated.
Same here, @lunatic59, right down to the B&W console TV.
I wish I had been older while Kennedy was president. I want to be able to appreciate him from my own knowledge. Well...nah...that would make me even older now...but hopefully my point is understood.
I wish I had been older while Kennedy was president. I want to be able to appreciate him from my own knowledge. Well...nah...that would make me even older now...but hopefully my point is understood.
We didn't have films at my primary school. We had film reels.
Not to denigrate the man or his accomplishments, I've often thought what it would be like to meet Kennedy, Lincoln or Jefferson, or even FDR, but I would guess that to rise to that level of power they had to have some S.O.B. in them.
I don't remember film of any kind in elementary school. We had blackboards and composition books and pencils. And, we had recess where we could play without getting our tongues stuck to a frozen flagpole.
Really? We had films regularly, both in individual classrooms and in the A/V [audio/visual] room for larger groups. It was always fun being picked to wheel the projector and film back to their storage room afterward.
We also had closed-circuit TV from the school district; that's how our Spanish lessons were done.
I recently recorded [from TCM] a beautiful, short French film, The Red Balloon, I first saw in elementary school. We were very immersed in different types of media.
Same here!
I remember the film projectors (that never seemed to work right) and film strips with audio that would advance each frame, and assemblies at movies, but this was only from grade 7 onwards. My grade school was a small community school on the outskirts of Philadelphia. We didn't even have lockers, just a coat room on each of the two floors with cubby holes for personal items.
In a 4th of July parade I was one of 4 flag bearers for our cub scout troop (it was a great honor to carry a flag) that started at the town hall and ended at my school. It was a very hot day and we were in long pants and long sleeves. The route was about a mile long and at the end of it, i almost collapsed from heat exhaustion. My mom and the school principal took me to her office where they could call the doctor because that was the only phone in the building. And she had a window fan. As a matter of fact, no school I ever attended before college had air conditioning, except for the teacher's lounge.
That's me with the fold cutting me in half. I think 1966, but the photo isn't marked and its WAAAAYYYYY too long ago for me to remember.
In a 4th of July parade I was one of 4 flag bearers for our cub scout troop (it was a great honor to carry a flag) that started at the town hall and ended at my school. It was a very hot day and we were in long pants and long sleeves. The route was about a mile long and at the end of it, i almost collapsed from heat exhaustion. My mom and the school principal took me to her office where they could call the doctor because that was the only phone in the building. And she had a window fan. As a matter of fact, no school I ever attended before college had air conditioning, except for the teacher's lounge.
That's me with the fold cutting me in half. I think 1966, but the photo isn't marked and its WAAAAYYYYY too long ago for me to remember.
"Everyone remembers where they were when they heard JFK had been shot" always amused me, because I have no memory of my past lives .
I guess my closest to that was coming out of a tube station (London underground railway) and seeing the Evening Standard front page about the Challenger disaster. And I suspect that walking up the steps of that particular tube station on a winter evening would give me flashbacks to this day.
.I guess my closest to that was coming out of a tube station (London underground railway) and seeing the Evening Standard front page about the Challenger disaster. And I suspect that walking up the steps of that particular tube station on a winter evening would give me flashbacks to this day.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard about the Challenger. I was in my car at the intersection of 23rd Ave. and Dengler St. and pulled into the nearest parking lot to listen to the complete report. I also remember where I was when I heard About Elvis passing (1977) as well as Kurt Cobain (1994). I'd like to forget that O.J. Simpson Ford Bronco chase (also 1994).
The Challenger disaster is burned into my head. I think I've posted this before.
My best college buddy and I had just entered the chemistry lab after taking an Organic Chemistry test. A close friend, a fellow 'older' student who worked in the chem lab, and was known for being a jokester, immediately told us the Challenger had blown up. We thought he was kidding. I told him it wasn't funny, and to knock it off. When he said 'no, really,' his expression made clear it was true. [It was his birthday.] We got done with whatever we needed to do and went home.
As I walked in my front door, the phone was ringing; it was my best friend, Jeff, telling me to put CNN Headline News on; we watched together, over the phone, as they played...and endlessly replayed...the explosion..."go with throttle up"...*boom*
My daughter got home from school looking shell-shocked. I got off the phone to talk to her. My husband got home from work. We all just sat gaping at the TV for what seemed like hours.
A very sad, tragic day.
My best college buddy and I had just entered the chemistry lab after taking an Organic Chemistry test. A close friend, a fellow 'older' student who worked in the chem lab, and was known for being a jokester, immediately told us the Challenger had blown up. We thought he was kidding. I told him it wasn't funny, and to knock it off. When he said 'no, really,' his expression made clear it was true. [It was his birthday.] We got done with whatever we needed to do and went home.
As I walked in my front door, the phone was ringing; it was my best friend, Jeff, telling me to put CNN Headline News on; we watched together, over the phone, as they played...and endlessly replayed...the explosion..."go with throttle up"...*boom*
My daughter got home from school looking shell-shocked. I got off the phone to talk to her. My husband got home from work. We all just sat gaping at the TV for what seemed like hours.
A very sad, tragic day.