It Was MANual to Be Automatic

A real shame. That’s what it was. Simply an unfortunate occurrence that could have happened to anyone. But this time, it happened to Mr. Garretson. The Garretson family was our across-the-street neighbor when we moved from Nederland to Beaumont in 1940. I was four years old. Their son, Jackie, became one of my best playmates. He and I initiated what eventually became known as The Pipkin Street Gang.

Anyway, back to Mr. Garretson and his unfortunate occurrence. One day he came home from work driving a brand new car. Jackie told me it was an Oldsmobile. I had never heard of an Oldsmobile but did know that Mr. Garretson’s brand new car surely was pretty.

You may be thinking, “What’s so unfortunate about getting a brand new car?” I’ll tell you. The very first week that he had that new car something went wrong. I was just a little kid and even I could tell that something was not right.

One morning, Mr. Garretson left to go to work. I remember it was a Saturday because I was still in bed. There was a noise that I could not identify. I listened more closely. The noise was coming from that brand new car. The car seemed to roar. Not just your usual everyday kind of roar. This was a roar that was louder than any I had ever heard. I kept listening as he made his way down Pipkin. He turned at the first street which was Chaison. I could hear the roar even after he had gone a block or so down Chaison. “How sad,” I thought to myself.

Later that morning (after I finally dragged out of bed), I told my mother about the sad thing that happened to Mr. Garretson’s car. I explained about the roar. My mother started laughing and said, “That’s the new Hydramatic transmission that Oldmobile is introducing this year. It’s automatic. She explained how you didn’t have to use a manual clutch with an automatic transmission. Of course I didn’t know a clutch from a spark plug so it made little sense to me.

Anyway, that was my introduction to automatic transmissions. From that moment on, I had a new friend. His name was Oldsmobile Charlie. Charlie moved into my brain and has resided there ever since. When Charlie talks, he sounds like an old hydramatic transmission. Charlie used to say, “Hellooo (shift to lower voice) how are youuu (shift to even lower voice) todayyy.” In fact, Charlie spoke to me just this morning. We enjoy talking about old times, or would that be, “Olds Times?”

Later, Buick came out with Dynaflow and Chevrolet introduced Powerglide. These were automatic transmissions but nothing compared to Hydramatic.

Years later when I turned fifteen and had my driver’s license, I learned that a mechanic at Beaumont Motor Company (Chevrolet dealership) had installed a hydramatic transmission and an air-conditioner into his 1946 Chevrolet sedan. I thought that was the neatest thing. The only fancy feature on my 1939 Buick was rear turn indicator lights. Always wondered why that car didn’t have turn indicators in the front.

But I liked the idea of wanting people to think that my Buick had an automatic transmission and air-conditioning. So I would drive on Pearl Street in downtown Beaumont during the dead heat of a summer afternoon with my windows all rolled up. Then when I started up from a traffic light, I would start in high gear (third) and slowly let out on the manual clutch. Hopefully, folks would think that I had spruced up my Buick just like that mechanic had done with his Chevrolet.

I don’t know why boys think like that … maybe it’s just automatic.

Winston Hamby
WinHamby@Gmail.com