T+97 A shifty proposition

BOX SCORE	8/12/2024
Element	Current	Std. Range	Trend
Hemoglobin	12	13-17	^
Platelets	185	140-375	^
ANC	3610	1800-8300	v

When I was in high school, every teenage guy dreamed of having his own car. A car meant freedom and autonomy and above all, stature. With a car you could go where you wanted to go and do what you wanted to do. And with gas at 22 cents a gallon, you could even afford to buy fuel, especially if, like me, you had a job that paid a whole dollar per hour! 

Some guys I knew were pretty good shade tree mechanics, and they could take their cars apart and reassemble them with "improvements" that were the envy of guys like me, who was not so mechanically inclined and confined to borrowing the family sedan on special occasions. One of the "improvements" that was really popular was "four on the floor." What, you may ask, is four on the floor?

Most of the cars that my friends drove during my time in high school (1959-1963) were models from the 1940s and early 50s. In those days, the majority of cars had "standard"or "manual" transmissions, as opposed to automatic transmissions. In other words, you had to step on the clutch pedal and use a hand lever to manually change from one gear to the next as the car accelerated. The hand lever was traditionally mounted on the steering column, and "standard" transmissions had three "gears," which meant three choices of gear ratios. This arrangement was fondly known as "three on the tree.'' It involved a mechanical linkage of rods and levers from the shift handle mounted on the "tree" near the steering wheel to the transmission under the floorboard.

"Four on the floor," by contrast, had a shift lever connected directly to the transmission through the floorboard of the car. In addition, there was an extra gear ratio selection. The result was that the shift mechanism worked more smoothly, without all of that linkage, and the extra gear ratio meant you could wind the engine up to higher RPMs (and thus higher horsepower output) between shifts. And that meant faster acceleration. Never mind that your girlfriend's knees were in danger of bruising, as she sat near you on the standard bench seats, without seat belts. 

Yessir! Four on the floor was every teenage boy's dream. In later configurations, the bench seat was replaced by "bucket" seats, individual chairs for driver and passenger. This was a boon to driving ease and girlfriends' knees. It didn't do much for romance, but then most of the guys' first loves were their cars anyway.*

Gear shifting in cars has come a long way, from three on the tree to four on the floor to automatic transmissions with as many as eight or ten gear ratios. Jill and I are finding that gear shifting is becoming a big part of our lives as we wind down our time in the Hobbit Hole and prepare to go home to our little bungalow in Dallas. 

There are big changes on the horizon for us. We learned yesterday that virtually all food restrictions will be gone. We still need to be very careful about exposure to viruses, so quarantine at some level is in order. Tacrolimus, the one immune suppressant drug I am taking, will be gradually tapered to zero at about day T+180. Another drug that is an anti-fungal will stop being part of my routine beginning on day T+101 (Saturday this week). That's four sizable pills per day I won't have to swallow. I will only need blood draws once every two weeks until T+180, and that means my PICC line will be removed, freeing me from wearing an awkward waterproof shield every time I shower, not to mention weekly dressing changes. And best of all, we get to be home. Our plan is now to absquatulate from Portland on Friday afternoon, following our final appointment with Dr. Meyers. 

Yep, you can keep your four on the floor, this gear change is far better!

Moving house, in this case, will be fairly simple and only  require the good old Ford (with 6 speed automatic transmission) and not a moving van. We have begun packing and notified the Landlord of our departure date, so he can send us the final rent bill. Jill has cancelled  her coveted laundry service, but our last delivery of clean laundry will be on Thursday morning, so we will go home with clean clothes to wear. Praise the Lord!

* One summer, I was working as a counselor at Malibu Club, a beautiful resort in the woods of Canada at the junction of two fjords, complete with water ski boats, fishing gear, swimming pool and pitch and putt golf course. This place was operated by Young Life Campaign, a non-denominational Christian outreach to high school students. One day I encountered one of the "campers," a high school junior boy, who looked really down and defeated. I asked him what was troubling him, and he said, "If I could just see my car for five minutes."