[Leica] OT: Automatic Transmissions Are Deadly Boring

[msmall at aya.yale.edu (Marc James Small)]

At 10:20 PM 6/3/05 -0700, Doug Herr wrote:
>on 6/3/05 9:30 PM, Marc James Small at msmall@aya.yale.edu wrote:
>
>> What you are revealing is that you are an incapable driver, and you have
>> the brass to brag about it.
>
>Marc, it's time for your meds.

Doug

I understand that one of the world-class courses in defensive driving is
taught at Black Point or thereabouts, near to your environs.  Instead of
getting nasty, why not learn how to drive intelligently?  The alternative
would be to promise never to curse the highways of the US again with the
sort of inconsiderate foolishness conducted constantly by
automatic-transmission drivers.

Learn how to drive.  If you cannot do this, then, please, quite seeking
palliatives for an inability to link your brain to your right and left
feet.  Once you learn how to do it, it is, well, to make a bit of a joke,
"automatic".

I  guess I have driven around 1.2 million miles over the past forty years.
All but a pittance of this has been in manual transmision cars, as I have
never and will never own a slipshift.  I don't know how to drive an
automatic and am baffled, constantly, on those reare occasions when I am
forced to operate one of those things.

My father, born in 1915, loved automatic transmissions.  But, then, he
thought they were "modern".  I agree with him on his appreciation of Glenn
Miller.  But, then, Dad also knew how to drive a straight:  on one occasion
almost thirty years ago, I found myself, with some misgivings, compelled to
lend Dad my Triumph TR-7 to attend his 45th High School Reunion, and it
came back without a flaw in it.  The Old Man came through!  But that was,
to my knowledge, the last time he ever drove a straight, though he lived a
couple of decades longer.  

Face it, guy:  automatics are for old fogies,. while stick shifts are cool.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!

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