okieinexile
Well-Known Member
By Bobby Neal Winters
I am an old fashioned sort of guy whose thinking is bound by all kinds of out-dated stereotypes. I still believe in honesty, valor, and heroism as being virtues. Heck, I still think there are virtues. How old-fashioned is that?
In my journey of self-discovery, I have found that I want to be a hero, and I think all men do. We want to rescue our damsels in distress from the fire-breathing dragon. We want to impress them with daring deeds of skill and strength, and when we meet our future wives, in their compassion for us, they often let us believe they are impressed with what we do, and yet after we are married, and time passes, we slowly discover the truth. Our wives are accomplished actresses, who recognize that we are not heroes, but simply little boys.
However, those of us who are lucky enough to be fathers—especially the fathers of little girls—have the chance to be seen as heroes for real and to know that feeling again.
When our eldest was one, she had a set of plastic pop-beads of the type that you can form into a necklace. I discovered that I could impress her by lying on the floor, putting these beads into my mouth, and firing them off like rockets when she pressed on my tummy. She thought it was funny, and I was her hero.
Unfortunately, children become harder to impress when they grow older. By the time they are twelve, their admiration is a scarce item, and by the time they are almost sixteen, their admiration is like the Sasquatch, alive only in the imagination.
However, I have caught some fleeting glimpses of it recently as if it were disappearing into the woods in the Pacific Northwest. Ironically, it has been over the art of driving a standard transmission.
I would not have guessed this when I was sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty. The clutch and I have a long, unhappy history. I don't go to college football games, and the reason is that once when I was in college I went to a game and had trouble getting out of the parking lot. The lot was at the bottom of a hill, and I found myself at the front of a long line of cars that watched me failing to get my car rolling out of the parking lot, as they cackled at my repeated, jerking failures. If you've never driven a standard, then you don't know what I'm talking about, and I hate you.
Recently, I have been teaching my eldest to drive a standard. Not having the foresight to be born into a family that can afford to give her a new car with an automatic transmission, she will be forced to drive an old hand-me-down Ford truck with a stick shift.
I've taken her out into the country to learn on back roads. Just us, the hay, and the cows are around, and the cows don't laugh--not too hard anyway. She has made excellent progress, and I've only felt that I was in an '80's movie about heroin smugglers once when we went around a corner. However, the loop I have her drive has on stop at the top of a small hill, and she has had to face the demons of my youth.
In watching this from the point-of-view of a father-teacher, I see that it is a hard thing. It requires using your left foot on the clutch, your right foot on the break, and then moving your right foot from the break to the gas while letting your left off the clutch at just the correct rate. The first day, my Eldest was defeated. We made the last stop of the lesson some distance back from the stop sign, and she turned the steering wheel back over to me. As I came to the stop sign, stopped, and then started again with the smoothness of someone who has driven standards for twenty-five years now, I saw admiration in her eyes.
My soul soared, my heart quickened, and the wounds of yesteryear began to fall away. I thought that, perhaps, I might be able to attend college football again.
But my glee was short-lived. The next day she was able to do it herself. It is inevitable that I will be reduced to mere mortality again. At least I was hero for a day.
I am an old fashioned sort of guy whose thinking is bound by all kinds of out-dated stereotypes. I still believe in honesty, valor, and heroism as being virtues. Heck, I still think there are virtues. How old-fashioned is that?
In my journey of self-discovery, I have found that I want to be a hero, and I think all men do. We want to rescue our damsels in distress from the fire-breathing dragon. We want to impress them with daring deeds of skill and strength, and when we meet our future wives, in their compassion for us, they often let us believe they are impressed with what we do, and yet after we are married, and time passes, we slowly discover the truth. Our wives are accomplished actresses, who recognize that we are not heroes, but simply little boys.
However, those of us who are lucky enough to be fathers—especially the fathers of little girls—have the chance to be seen as heroes for real and to know that feeling again.
When our eldest was one, she had a set of plastic pop-beads of the type that you can form into a necklace. I discovered that I could impress her by lying on the floor, putting these beads into my mouth, and firing them off like rockets when she pressed on my tummy. She thought it was funny, and I was her hero.
Unfortunately, children become harder to impress when they grow older. By the time they are twelve, their admiration is a scarce item, and by the time they are almost sixteen, their admiration is like the Sasquatch, alive only in the imagination.
However, I have caught some fleeting glimpses of it recently as if it were disappearing into the woods in the Pacific Northwest. Ironically, it has been over the art of driving a standard transmission.
I would not have guessed this when I was sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty. The clutch and I have a long, unhappy history. I don't go to college football games, and the reason is that once when I was in college I went to a game and had trouble getting out of the parking lot. The lot was at the bottom of a hill, and I found myself at the front of a long line of cars that watched me failing to get my car rolling out of the parking lot, as they cackled at my repeated, jerking failures. If you've never driven a standard, then you don't know what I'm talking about, and I hate you.
Recently, I have been teaching my eldest to drive a standard. Not having the foresight to be born into a family that can afford to give her a new car with an automatic transmission, she will be forced to drive an old hand-me-down Ford truck with a stick shift.
I've taken her out into the country to learn on back roads. Just us, the hay, and the cows are around, and the cows don't laugh--not too hard anyway. She has made excellent progress, and I've only felt that I was in an '80's movie about heroin smugglers once when we went around a corner. However, the loop I have her drive has on stop at the top of a small hill, and she has had to face the demons of my youth.
In watching this from the point-of-view of a father-teacher, I see that it is a hard thing. It requires using your left foot on the clutch, your right foot on the break, and then moving your right foot from the break to the gas while letting your left off the clutch at just the correct rate. The first day, my Eldest was defeated. We made the last stop of the lesson some distance back from the stop sign, and she turned the steering wheel back over to me. As I came to the stop sign, stopped, and then started again with the smoothness of someone who has driven standards for twenty-five years now, I saw admiration in her eyes.
My soul soared, my heart quickened, and the wounds of yesteryear began to fall away. I thought that, perhaps, I might be able to attend college football again.
But my glee was short-lived. The next day she was able to do it herself. It is inevitable that I will be reduced to mere mortality again. At least I was hero for a day.
