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I learned to drive a stick on an F150 this way:

Working a summer construction job in Kokomo during the summer of 1980 building a Kroger/KMart strip mall. One cold damp early May morning I was shoveling mud out of a footing trench when the foreman came up and said “We need a job site gopher, someone who can go pick up materials and make some deliveries. Do you know how to drive a stick?” The only word out of my mouth was “yes.”

Now technically it wasn’t a lie; my brother had a burnt orange Pinto wagon with a five speed, and I saw how he did it. Had he asked “have you ever driven a stick before?” I would have had to give a different answer.

But as he was going on about picking up some lumber and mortar from Kokomo Lumber, I was looking over his shoulder at that F150 and thinking “All I have to do is get that thing off the lot and over there behind the Hardees, where I can practice without him seeing me. If I can make it to Kokomo Lumber and back, I’m set for the summer.”

And that’s exactly what happened. I would do the hard labor in the morning when it was cool, and then contrive some reason to “go pick up something.” Which meant driving around Kokomo listening to Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau broadcast Cub games on WGN.