Pluggers by Rick McKee for November 28, 2023

In my case it was our front yard in my dads 67 Ford pickup 3 on the tree I was 8 summer of 1970.

Massey Ferguson tractor for me.

Ah the good ol village days where there was enough space in backyards for this.

Hummmmm …… My first driving was a lawn tractor cutting the grass. Vehicles came later … On the lawn I was cutting ;-)

Not me, I learned on the back roads in a 1963 Corvair. Soon after getting my license, I remember the time I got that car up to 100 mph. That was before Ralph Nader wrote the book about that car, entitled “Unsafe at Any Speed”. So I wasn’t aware of the peril I was in. Whoops.

You’re a plugger if you remember dating couples could sit right against one another, not separated by bucket seats and seatbelts.

I started learning in a ’37 Pontiac .. three on the tree w/ about 18 inch movement of the knob for each change.

That or you live in the countryside.

My father started teaching me how to drive back in the late 60’s in the parking lot of a nearby strip mall on Sundays when the stores were all closed. Wide open spaces where I could practice backing up at speed without running into anything.

Our backyard is pretty small — I taught my kids to drive in the cemetery!

I learned how to drive when I was 13, in my father’s old VW beetle, in the desert at White Tanks AZ.

When I read the directions, I thought it was directions to Miss Ida’s General Store.

learned to drive stick on the driveway. 2nd gear then i ran out if room

Not quite, unless you count the little old 3-wheeled riding lawnmower that came with our new (to us) house, and the little old motorcycles we bought in pieces and put back together, and the old snowmobile dad got from a farmer friend and fixed up.

1958 Borg Ward. Four on the column stick.

Learned at the airport on the ramp and runways. My dad was full time fighter pilot in the Air National Guard and I spent a lot of time out there. Would help retrieve drag chutes and my dad let me drive the pickup truck used to get them. Even used the radio to obtain tower clearance to drive down the runway and taxiways to go get them.

Not me! The back yard was too steep and had too many trees.

I was driving my uncle’s tractor when I was 9, and my father’s car when I was 12. We just never told my mother, she would have buried us alive.

Take 18th street out of town and turn north where Schroeder’s barn used to be.

46 Chev truck for me, going for the mail a mile down the road was always a good excuse.

When I graduated from college in 1974, I bought a 1971 Chevy Vega 3-speed to learn to drive in. It got 28 miles to the gallon & 100 miles to the quart, & the spark plugs fouled out so often that I kept 3 sets: one in use, one that my dad had taken to work to sandblast, & one in the garage ready to go in. Dad was an expert driver & taught me all the tricks so well that I used to creep up snowy/icy hills past stuck Jeeps. (Oh, the stink eyes I used to get – but if you can drive a 3-speed in Pittsburgh, you can drive any car anywhere!) It’s still my favorite car I’ve ever owned.

Country Squire station wagon. Almost put my mother through the windshield. Good times! :)

70’s High School parking lot during summer school drivers ed class. And then parking practice at the local Mickey Dee when the instructor needed lunch, pull in, back out (look over shoulder) and then merge back into traffic.

Good ol’ fashioned GPS!

So pluggers are rich enough to afford huge estates where their kids can drive around? Never expected that…

Our school system had driver’s ed in high school parking lots in the 60s. After getting my license I drove one of my dad’s Ford Falcons. He had a fleet of Fords (3 Falcons and 2 full-size station wagons—all acquired used.)

But the car I really learned to drive in was the first one I owned— a ’59 MGA coupe— with real roll-up windows (convertible MGAs had side-curtains.) It had 3 bias ply tires and one bald radial, plowed like a tractor and with the wind whistling through the body, was scary to drive over 60mph (speed limit was 70.) It just looked racy.

My dad had add a Jeepster to the stable by then. Driving the Jeepster was like driving a brick on roller skates. Unlike the MGA, it was deceptively fast. It only looked slow. One always worried about other drivers pulling out in front of it because, even when the brakes were new and fully functional, the brakes were sh#t. It took twice as long to stop the Jeepster as it took to get it up to speed.

He must have a pretty big backyard.

My mom first learned to drive a team of horses for hay baling season. Does that count? She was 4 or 5 and the youngest. As for me, I started at 13 by learning to shift for my mom when she drove, then she started letting me actually drive at 14 in school and store parking lots on Sundays. We had a ‘67 VW camper at the time.

My Father taught me on a ’58 Cheve, 3 speed on column and when I was at my Grandparents, my Grandfather taught me to run his JD440 Bulldozer …. started learning both when I was around 8 years old …… :)