My dad taught me to drive a straight shift back in 1975 in our '70 Chevy Pickup (which, by the way, I owned up until last summer when State Farm made us get rid of my mini-junkyard).  After I got pretty decent at it he did a strange thing.  He took me out in the country and taught me to drive it without using the clutch.  It seemed kind'a stupid at the time, but he told me that everyone needs to be able to do it . . . "sooner or later it'll get you home."  Somehow the transmission survived all the grinding, but within an hour or so, I was pretty good at it.  I could crank it in first and match the engine speed to the speed of the vehicle and shift to second and third (it was a "three on the tree") with little or no noises from the tranny.

Yesterday coming back from Mainly Foreign I took some back roads and was coming into the sprawling metropolis of Chickamauga.  As a approached THE traffic light, it was red.  I stepped on the clutch pedal and just as it got to the floor and I shifted to neutral, something snapped . . . the clutch re-engaged and the pedal stayed on the floor.  No problemo . . . turn the switch off, put it in first, crank it in gear . . . match the engine speed to the vehicle speed . . . and head over to Kyle's house to rob whatever broke off of one of my parts buses stored there.  About 15 - 20 miles, several stop signs and red lights later, I got there without a problem.  A pin that holds the clutch cable to the pedal lever had worn into.  We replaced it with a small bolt and I was back on the road.

What would you do in the same situation?  What if happened in a rough neighborhood at night?  Or 25 miles from the nearest cell phone service?    It might seem stupid to go out and purposely grind on your transmission's gears and synchronizers, but if you don't know how to drive a straight shift without a clutch, you really ought to learn.  It might be years from now, but as my dad told me almost 30 years ago . . . "Sooner or later, it'll get you home."  Thanks dad!  You were right.