How I learned to Drive Manual Transmission

Yesterday, I spoke with my ex-husband about his upcoming trip to Israel with our son. They needed a car, they needed trip insurance, they need some hotels, and he needed my professional help. Yes, I’m a travel professional. Don’t try this at home. We talked about what kind of car he wanted to rent, and he said “Not a Fiat 500″ and we both burst out laughing. We’d met on Kibbutz, in Israel, and that Fiat played a part in our story.

In May, 1969, I moved to Israel. I was 20 years old, a college drop-out, and an idealist who felt shattered by the direction the United States had moved: Richard Nixon was our President, we were enmeshed in a horrible war in Viet Nam, our nation was torn apart. What better thing for a young Jewish girl to do than move to a new nation, become a pioneer, farm, get my hands dirty. My parents dropped me at the airport, and off I went on my new adventure.

I met my ex- on the first day I arrived. He literally grabbed my art portfolio out of my hands and carried it to the housing block I was assigned. He was on a bicycle. He thought he was dashing. I thought he was an asshole. So began 22 years of ragged togetherness before it ended in divorce. Hell, we get along better divorced than we ever did married, but that’s a whole nother story.

This story is about a four cylinder Fiat 500, a car that was manual transmission and only had two cylinders working. It wasn’t our car. It didn’t really belong to anyone, exactly. This girl purchased it in Spain for $500, drove the hell out of it until she appeared on the Kibbutz one day, parked it, and stayed for a month. She left, and somehow the car (and the keys) stayed. Somehow, we had those keys. So, we just sort of decided we had right of first whatever.

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