Inevitably, no matter what the outside or inside temperature, driver and passenger(s) alike would eventually become sticky, sweaty and gross wherever skin or clothes touched the slick, flat, vinyl bench seat. This was not, in fact, the worst part of this seat. While uncomfortable, the seat presented a far larger problem for the person in the passenger seat. This truck was so basic in its trim, that Ford had declined to even include a grab handle anywhere for the passenger to latch onto for cornering. When driving became spirited, a passenger could claw at the door, try to wedge against the dash, or, the most common approach, resign themselves to be flopped about the passenger seat, kept from tangling with the steering wheel only by the locking seat belt that would start ratcheting them tighter against the smooth, slick vinyl their sweat was accumulating against. This flopping was really only a problem with two occupants.
When three people went for a ride in the cab, there was no flopping. The cab might have been five feet wide, but having slept in the cab on multiple occasions, I would guess that a better estimate of the dimensions of the cab would be an L, four feet wide, three feet tall and three feet long. Three was, without a doubt, a crowd. More could be accommodated, on a river trip I once had four in the cab, and eleven in the bed with three boats and enough PFDs, paddles, and helmets for the crew. Clown car antics were not well suited for long drives though, so three people could wedge in for drives to the local crag, or across New Mexico.
On one of these drives, it was discovered that everyone was far more comfortable if the person in the middle "seat," straddled the stick shift, one foot on the driver's side, on on the passenger's. When Heidi or Corinne would ride in the middle this was no problem, as their leg made a nice armrest for me, and the intrusion upon their personal space was not the biggest issue. They were both also small, put three people my size in the cab, and it was tighter. Put three men abreast in the truck, and second and fourth could be uncomfortable shifts. I could drive without these two gears, but with a full house and a four-cylinder engine, it made for rough shifting with lots of revs and slow acceleration.
At some point someone came up with a solution. The person in the middle would do the shifting! It seemed so obvious. The driver would say shift up or down (usually obvious to the copilot), and they would shift when the clutch was depressed. Eventually, this method evolved into the person in the middle also working the gas. It was team driving, and it worked with anyone familiar with driving a clutch. Driver and co-driver had to communicate when to clutch. It also took a couple of practice shifts to get used to the rate each person applied the gas and let out the clutch, but you would be driving along smoothly soon enough.
One night, driving home from climbing at Spook Canyon, Travis, Egypt and I were engaged in this driving style. We realized that the person on the far right had no job, which seemed not in the spirit of team driving. Far from any of the controls there was only one job that this person could perform, navigator.
At some point growing up, probably after watching Sneakers, my father told my brother and I that in college, they let their blind friend drive on the back roads of Pullman. They would give their friend clock directions to turn the steering wheel, and he would drive the car. The navigator in the Ranger would have a boring job, as we all knew the way, unless we took a lesson from my father's antics, and the driver were blind.
None of us were blind, so, the driver closed their eyes, and had control of the steering, clutch and brake. The co-driver had the shifting and accelerator. The navigator gave steering, and, most importantly, braking directions. We took turns at the various roles.
We started, as I recall, with me driving, Egypt shifting, and Travis navigating. To my memory, Travis was not suited to navigation, as the more impending the doom, the less instruction, and more giggling he did. I recall opening my eyes to a fit of laughter, and Egypt's expletives, headed directly for a 30 inch drop into an arroyo. This may have been the motivation for rotating roles.
I think I was shifting and Egypt was navigating when the next issue was encountered. The steering on a Ford Ranger cannot be described as tight. There was not any play in the steering, but tight corners required turning the wheel at least 180°. The steering directions had to be amended, on the fly, to include clock directions like "three o'clock left," or rotating the wheel 270° counterclockwise. This might make sense reading it here, but remember this was driving at night, on a windy gravel road, with no prior agreement, and lots of natural hazards provided by the arroyo that ran along side, or sometimes on the road. Calling out, "three o'clock left" with a shrill sense of urgency does not make a great deal of sense. I think I swore, the natural reaction of the shifter, who could only make the vehicle go faster, and watch danger coming.
When we made it back to the highway, the navigator position was dropped for reasons of public safety, but we kept team driving. I think the experience made us better at team driving, like some sort of crazy trust and team building exercise for adults. If any security clearance background checkers or wives are reading this, I think two things are important here, as soon as speeds were involved that could really injure someone, we stopped doing the really dangerous part of this nonsense. Secondly, I trust these two people so much that I will let one of them close their eyes and drive the car, while the other gives directions so as not to injure any of us, or destroy my most valuable possession.
As a non sequitur, it is said that students from top tier institutions like Harvard and Stanford are being trained not for the positions of tomorrow, but to create the positions of tomorrow. If that, whatever it means, is true, than the lower and middle class students at New Mexico School of Mines are not being trained to create the positions of tomorrow, but rather how to solve the problems of today. Facebook is an amazing revolution in procrastination, but the minds that created team driving are engineering energy sources, and programming electronic security. We may not have changed the world, but damn if we did not have a good time in the desert solving problems that didn't really exist.
This may be the first time I've heard that story. I wonder why egypt didn't tell me about it at the time?
ReplyDelete~Jessi
It may have been my buddy Syria, sometimes I get the facts wrong.
DeleteI have considered changing more names, but I get confused when writing the stories. Which is my lame way of apologizing to everyone who I out by using only first names.