How at 15 I learned to drive stick in the Appalachian mountains

A post on the front page recently which showed just how few people can drive stick brought to mind a story which I thought you guys might enjoy.At 15, I had absolutely 0 interest in cars. My life revolved around Age of Empires and fantasy novels. I knew I had to learn to drive eventually to have any hope of getting my nerdy ass laid, but I saw it as more of a chore than anything.Every year, my mothers side of the family gets together at my grandparent's cabin in North Georgia. To get to the cabin, you have to drive up a precarious, winding, one car width gravel road with a steep drop on one side. Intense elevation, no guardrails. Each year my father would curse trying to drive up the damn thing, everyone in the car silently praying. Somehow my grandpa once got an RV up there which amazed us but that's the sort of thing old timers can do after they've finished shooting Nazis right above the belt buckle in their youth.Anyways, so soon after my 15th birthday we manage to get up to the cabin, and sitting in the drive we see a 1991 Mazda 626 next to my aunt and uncle's SUV. After introductions, my uncle announces its mine and he wants to teach me to drive it. It's a manual. On that gravel road. In the Appalachian mountains, where one wrong move can lead to a Final Destination style descent with banjos playing in the background.I was not happy about this.The next day at breakfast, my uncle, a smart but awkward engineer with glasses that take up half his face, told me it was time to learn to drive. I deflected and made up excuses why I couldn't that day. I didn't think my deflections were a big deal but even as an awkward 15 year old I could tell my uncle was a bit hurt.During dishes, my dad pulled me aside. "Your uncle is giving you a car. Do you know what a big deal that is?" I nodded. "He and Aunt ****** can't have children. He wants to teach a young man to drive- this is the only time he'll get to do that. Please give him this."So I agreed. I met my uncle in the driveway- weirdly, he had a notebook in his hand. "Before we drive," he said, "you need to learn how a car works." And so we spent about an hour with him sketching out the workings of a gear shift and all sorts of stuff that this future liberal arts grad could barely understand.Finally, the moment I dreaded. I sat in the driver's seat and he popped in as a passenger. We went back and forth a bit in the driveway, and then we went down the precarious gravel road. I've never gripped a steering wheel so tightly. I spent pretty much the whole time in 1st, every once in a while he would grab onto the wheel to keep us from falling into oblivion.After what was probably ten minutes but what felt like an hour, we finally made it to a paved road at the bottom of the mountain. I thought that the lesson was either over or we would start heading out to civilization, but instead he said "now it's time to learn how to reverse."I made it back up that mountain, internally cursing the whole time. We left right after breakfast. We got back right before lunch.In the days after, we drove down the mountain and into town, him teaching me all the traffic laws and how to gear up on a highway. He never made me reverse up the gravel path again, but by the end of the vacation that mountain was my bitch. I could DRIVE. And it was awesome.Two years later, I took my now wife on our first date in that Mazda. She was pretty impressed that I was the only guy in high school that could drive stick. Thanks Uncle Bill.Anyways, I always thought that was a cool little story you guys might enjoy. via /r/cars http://ift.tt/2ujImLf