2026, Automotive, Kids, Technology

When They Roamed

34 Comments

My car (Honda Insight) is 12 years old.  She has held up remarkably well but I wasn’t overly surprised when a couple of weeks ago, I had to push my key fob repeatedly to open the car.  But it only happened twice, so then I forgot about it.

Then three days ago, the key fob quit locking.  It would unlock but not lock.  I tried the old key fob – that one was deader than dead.  A quick trip to the hardware store and two new batteries didn’t fix the problem; the internet search listed about 10 possible causes, only one of which was something I could fix on my own.  And that fix didn’t work.  *&#^^%@$.

With YA coming home Sunday night, I was worried that if I messed around too much, locking the car the old fashioned way, that I might not then be able to open it.  Since I needed the car to pick up YA and also needed the car to take a friend downtown yesterday morning, I didn’t want an issue.

Then I made my big mistake; I texted YA about the situation.  What I really wanted to know was where her keys were, in case I needed to use her car to pick her up.

What I got was:

  • Directions on how to change to batteries in the fob. (Thanks, did that on my own already)
  • You know you have the old fob in the drawer? (Yep, been there, done that)
  • Why don’t you leave it until I get home. (Really, you don’t trust me to drive your car to the airport and back?)
  • You know, you can lock the car with your key. There’s a key hole on the door.  (I am not making this up).

Fortunately, the fob is now working intermittently so the short-term issue is on hold although I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with this in the coming month.  Not sure how to let YA know that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ONLY way to lock a car was with the key in the door!

Did you know how to drive a stick-shift?  Did you learn on it or teach yourself later?

34 thoughts on “When They Roamed”

  1. Grew up on stick shift. Learned to drive a car at age 12 in a 36 Chevy my father had converted to a pickup. I had been driving a tractor for a few years but the tractor you did not shift in motion.
    After haying season my father season my father took me out in the field, taught me how, told me to spent an hour practicing, and left me to it.
    Clyde

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  2. I was 16, and had a driver’s license. My brother got drafted. He left a car behind and gave me permission to “start it once or so every week”. I took that to mean “twice a day”. A 1960 Ford Falcon with a stick shift. Much to the chagrin of the clutch on that thing, I taught myself.
    Brother went to Vietnam. About the time he came back, I joined up. Brother bought an Oldsmobile, and the Falcon went to the next brother along the line when I went to Vietnam.
    The experience with the stick shift has served me well ever since, though now I have an EV, and pay little attention to what gear anything is in.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  4. I learned to drive a stick in my Dad’s pickup and with his guidance. My first car and several thereafter were stick shifts.
    Being able to comfortably drive a stick shift stood me in good stead when we rented cars in the British Isles (Scotland and Wales), though I had to adjust to shifting with my left hand.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  5. Yes, I would hope I can still drive a stick, but haven’t for decades now.

    My dad taught me on Iowa back roads. He was a driver ed teacher, but he used our car, and I never ended up taking the class… so didn’t have to see the graphic video I heard about.

    Interesting, VS, that one option you had was just going somewhere and not locking your car. I’m never lock our car for short errands, mostly just if I’m leaving it somewhere like on campus for some hours. Of course, this is a smaller town…

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. Years ago, when the garage door was broken, I had my car broken into. There’s never much of value in my car when I’m not in it, but they stole the registration and the insurance information out of the glove box. Nothing came of it, but apparently sometimes it does. That’s when I started locking the car all the time. And got the garage door fixed.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  6. Going back to yesterday’s post. I was sent a voice mail from an insurance company which has been awful. The print out of the message says, “you can give us a call back at______. My name is Maria. You have a great day and die for now.”
    Clyde

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      3. A program reads voice mails and prints them out, rather poorly. I am sure she said bye for now. Their call center is overseas. Accents throw that program.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

    4. I wonder if the phone answering system interpreted, “and bye for now,” to what you saw in the transcribed message. I know my phone messaging system doesn’t always ‘hear’ certain words correctly. I’m sure they wouldn’t leave you that message.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  7. When I was in college, my boyfriend tried to teach me how to drive with a stick shift in his car in a large empty parking lot. I just couldn’t figure it out. It was so easy for him, but he was a pipe organ performance major, so he was really good at coordinating his feet with his hands!

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  9. YA learned on a stick shift because that was the only car we had when she was 16. I will say it took a little longer for her to learn to drive than her friends who were not learning on manuals, but I think she’s happy that she can drive a stick now. A point of pride.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  10. I was 23 years old when I learned to drive in a 1963 VW Beetle; wasband was my very patient instructor. (He also taught me how to play tennis and chess.) I learned on country roads in the vicinity of Cheyenne with very little traffic.

    My current car, a 2008 PT Cruiser, is the only car with automatic gear shift that I have ever owned.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  11. I learned to drive using a stick shift. We had a Chevy Blazer 4WD with a manual and a Saab. I preferred the Saab, of course, but Dad insisted I drive that Blazer. It was really hard for me. The whole thing was huge and I weighed about 90 pounds then. It didn’t have power steering and shifter was hard for me. The thing bucked and lurched as I ground through the gears. My dad yelled at me mercilessly which made it worse. I ended up in tears, my mom scolded my dad by saying, “Bill…” and she took over my driver training in the Saab. That was all fine and dandy, and soon I was shifting away like I’d always done it. When it came time to take my driver’s test, they sent me in the family Pontiac station wagon – you know the ones as long as your living room and as wide as the lane on the county road. Of course I knocked over all the cones on my drivers test. I had to take it twice. I don’t remember why they sent me in that station wagon. Once I finally got my license, they traded that Saab for a ‘74 VW Beetle with no heat and a manual transmission. I drove that for my evening waitress job.

    I prefer to drive a stick to this day, however, I don’t have one anymore. I’m used to an automatic now. I changed over to an automatic when I was working in the Cities and I had to drive to and from work on 35E in rush hour traffic. I almost burned up the clutch in my Honda Civic when I was working up there and I saw the advantage to an automatic.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. My story is very similar to yours. I was learning on a VW beetle, my mom‘s car, and a little bit in my dad‘s car, which was a Lincoln Towne car. After an incident in the Beetle, which was completely my dad‘s fault (my mother was a witness), they decided that I should just learn and take my test on one car, the Lincoln. So I took my test in the Lincoln and then went out that same evening in the bug. After that, I rarely drove the aircraft carrier again.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    2. Yes, I’ve heard before of someone having to take the drivers test in a vehicle very different from the one they learned on – what a set-up for failure!

      And yes, the first time I appreciated my automatic tranny was in rush hour traffic on 94. I had learned all the surface routes so I could exit the freeway at will…

      Like

      Reply

  12. I often think how easy cars and driving is now compared to 40’s and 50’s. Even60’s. Power steering. Multi-weight oils. Cabin heaters that work. AC. Auto transmission. Bigger windows. I don’t have the cameras, but those, too. Some of you are going to say you don’t like them. Cars get so much more mileage and last much longer. Seat belts. Window washers. That old converted 36 Chevy was a blast, and we got so much out of it before it died. A man heard about it and bought the front half for parts. My father once cut off the end of his right index finger. I was 14. I drove him to the hospital in it and they sewed the greasy end back onto hand and said it was not going to work. But it did. I drove him home. I had no license of course.
    Clyde

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  13. When our daughter was about 12 my dad had her drive him in his car around residential parts of Luverne. I didn’t find out about this until after thevfact.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  15. I miss driving a stick shift. I learned in a 1967 blue chevy pick up truck following dad around the field harvesting oats. Him on the tractor and old pull type combine, me following in the truck. I learned first gear really is too slow for anything in a truck like that. Just start in second.
    Like Cylde said, tractors have a clutch, but it’s different. And todays tractors, you don’t really have to use the clutch except when stopping. And sometimes not even then.

    You’ll have to point out there used to be another key for the trunk! Boy, hard to believe we survived.

    Try holding the key fob perpendicular to your chin. Supposed to help ‘amplify’ the key signal and give you a bit more distance. It does kinda work! I’ve done it!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  16. I had a similar problem with the fob for my car. It worked to open the car but not to lock it without pressing the button several times. I replaced the battery but that didn’t seem to make a difference. Finally I tried a different battery and that made all the difference. I don’t know what was the problem with the first (new) battery.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  17. Better Late Than Never, Baboons,

    I learned to drive a stick, AKA manual transmission. It helped a lot that my uncle, who stood in as a father figure, and who was the school drivers’ ed instructor, taught me. It has been invaluable over the years. I drove a dry cleaning delivery van, a straight truck, and my grandpa’s car(1960 era Rambler). The Rambler was most challenging. Grandpa never changed the oil, he just replaced it. He also did not ever have it repaired. You just worked around the stuff that was wrong. He never drove over 45 MPH, a habit he thought made it a car never needing repair. By the time I was driving it from LeMars to Pipestone, 90 miles, that transmission was a real challenge. The car usually smelled of burning oil or other substances by the time we reached the destination.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  18. I learned to drive a stick shift when Husband and I were dating. He was flying for a work trip and wanted me to drop him off and pick him up at the airport in his manual-shift Mustang. We practiced a bit and I somehow managed to get home from the airport after dropping him off. Picking him up was terrifying. I wasn’t at all confident of my driving skills under the best of circumstances, and there I was driving a stick shift in heavy traffic. To make things worse, I’m directionally challenged, and this was way before GPS. By the time I got to the airport (with the car intact) I was a nervous wreck. Eventually I got to be very comfortable driving the Mustang and even enjoyed it.

    The key fob for our very old (2002) Honda CR-V died years ago. We’ve been locking and unlocking the old-fashioned way ever since. A big contrast to our newer (2021) Honda Accord, that doesn’t even require a fob; it opens when you touch the handle. The old-fashioned way actually seems more reliable.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  19. Bill Cosby had a routine about driving a VW with clutch on the hills of San Francisco. Stuck at a stop sign at the crest of a hill! Bumper to bumper traffic piles up. “Come around, idiot.”

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment