Sticking It To America
One of my favorite things is to take something that seems meaningless and point out it’s devastating effects on society. It’s at that point someone says, “you’re overthinking,” to which I always retort, “No, you’re not thinking enough.”
There are many things disappearing from American society which people fret about for absolutely no reason other than the need to be dramatic; handwriting, for example, is an unneeded and unnecessary skill. If the grid failed tomorrow, we still all know how to write…doing so in fancy cursive is of no importance at all. Newspapers, magazines, and books are all going the way of the Dodo bird and who cares? We still read! In fact, we access information faster than ever before. Plus, we need room for more Chick Fil A restaurants so buh-bye, Barnes and Noble. Communicating through daily mail service? Please. Get a life. The Post Office isn’t going away (thank you Amazon), but the need for mail in the traditional form is a thing of the past. Quick side note based on a personal experience this weekend: STOP DELIVERING THE PHONE BOOK TO ME. IT’S 2018!
There are, however, skills that are fading that are fundamentally altering us as a society in ways that are somewhere between sad and dangerous.
Traditionally and stereotypically, men were always taught how to build fires. Usually by their father, as opposed to You Tube, and usually in their home. In our ever-so-enlightened quest to save a planet that doesn’t need saving, we have vilified burning wood and all but eliminated at home fireplaces in favor of flipping a switch and miraculously being given flames via gas. Thus, learning how to make and build a fire happens (if it does at all) in the outdoors, often at a campsite or beach. As more and more beaches and even campsites ban open flames, this skill becomes less necessary and less known. Not to mention that camping, in the traditional sense, is all but extinct. Even with retro-loving hipsters blighting our daily lives making things like Pabst Blue Ribbon “cool” again (although it still isn’t any good), the camping of my youth is all but gone. Firing up a Coleman stove to heat some Dinty Moore Beef Stew while you and Dad find wood and build a fire is a distant memory for this nation. Instead, we Glamp in rented RVs and consider “roughing it,” as a battle over who gets the top bunk.
It isn’t about the fire, per se. It’s about so much more. Yes, knowing how to find, start, build, and maintain a fire might save your life someday, but shouts of “that will never happen,” have a place in the discussion, too. Short of major catastrophes, most of us won’t be faced with that reality, I’ll allow that (although I’m glad I am a master fire builder just in case…thanks, dad). The fire is a metaphor for basic life skills. The ability to recognize a challenge and conquer it. Cold? Need heat? Find wood of varying sizes, assemble properly in an inverted tower design, find or create a light point such as paper or dry leaves, find or create a spark, and ignite. Tend to the fire as needed. Boom, problem solved.
2018: identify a problem and ask Siri or Google. Holy crap.
Soon, we will add manual transmissions AKA stick shifts, to the ash heap of history. It’s part lazy and part attention span, but it’s another great metaphor for America’s never ending swirl down the toilet bowl.
It’s not as simple as “why do I need to know how to drive a stick if they’re going to stop making them,” (which they are) https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/09/05/stick-shift-manual-transmission/1131578002/
It’s about the process and understanding. Hell, it’s even about the hand-eye-foot-coordination. In other words, it matters.
My wife was forced to learn how to drive a stick while deployed in Afghanistan. It matters.
Driving a stick forces the driver to be more aware, more focused, and more quick. In other words, it demands all of the things our dopey society hates these days. Manual transmissions also put the driver in total control over everything; braking, gas usage, access to instant acceleration, and so much more. In an age where we want to buy our dinners pre-made from the grocery store and are gravitating to cars that will drive us for us, it’s no wonder we want nothing to do with those responsibilities.
And like the fire, there’s the process. My father taught me how to drive…in a stick. If you can drive a stick, a manual transmission is like beating a blind person at charades. But he didn’t just teach me, at 15, how to drive in a stick; he taught me how to drive, at 15, in a stick, on the hills of San Francisco. This is how men, and people, used to be made. Learn under the worse conditions and you’ll be prepared for all situations.
At John McCain’s funeral last week his daughter told a story that horrified millions. She fell off a horse and broke her collarbone; a terrifyingly painful injury at any age. When they returned from the hospital, before anything else, he out her back on that very same horse, with that broken collarbone. She tells it as follows:
He could have sat me down and told me that and made me feel small because my complaint and fear was nothing next to his pain and memory. Instead, he made me feel loved. "Meghan," he said in his quiet voice that spoke with authority and meant you had best obey. "Get back on the horse." I did. And because I was a little girl, I resented it. Now that I am a woman, I look back across that time and see the expression on his face when I climbed back up and rode again, and see the pride and love in his eyes as he said "Nothing is going to break you."
Whether it’s a horse or a manual transmission, these are the lessons and experiences that are being taken away from us generation by generation as we all cower in fear of simple things like skinned knees and hurt feelings. Millions of Americans took to Twitter (of course) to point out that while Meghan’s eulogy of her father was heartfelt, we shouldn’t be applauding his “reckless” parenting. Words matter. The definition of reckless is “without thinking or caring about the consequences of an action.” McCain lacked neither of those things. It was his caring for his daughter growing up to become a winning adult that led him to teach her about consequences and the actions that follow and never letting anything or anyone get the better of you. That type of powerful lesson is being stripped away on the daily.
I hate one thing about my truck; it’s an automatic. Because in America, if you want to get a new pickup truck that has a manual transmission, your only option is to by a diesel truck from one of two brands that even make those. Since I am not a working farmer nor do I have a small penis, I lack either of the credentials needed to justify owning a diesel. So I drive an automatic and wish every time that I didn’t. One of the reasons I drive my Corvette so often isn’t because it’s a Corvette, or I want to show off, but simply because it’s a stick and I know behind the wheel of a stick I’m the best driver on any road at any time. Now if I could just learn how to build a fire in the passenger seat I’d be all set. I’ll have to settle on my wife providing the heat…Elllllooooooo…
