Thinking about Bernie Sanders "steep road" to the nomination,

I was reminded of being 15 years old and learning to drive. That was in 1960 (I'm not far from Bernie's age).

My father taught me to drive, an experience that was fraught with peril for me. He was a good teacher, but unforgiving of the mistakes made by a gawky 15-year old.

The lessons were made more difficult by the vehicle being used to give me driving lessons. It was a 1948 Dodge pickup truck. the alternative would have been a 1952 Plymouth Suburban station wagon. Both had manual transmissions, of course.

The old Dodge, however, had a 4-speed, non-synchromesh transmission. Commonly called a "crash box" by many people, it required double-clutching on every shift, a skill almost unknown to most people today. Unless you matched engine speed with the transmission's needs with the clutch released while the transmission was in neutral, shifts produced a loud grinding sound. Grinding gears during shifting could damage the transmission. The skill is very hard to explain, really. You have to learn it through using it.

"Don't ruin my transmission!" my father said. "It would cost a lot to fix it." So, from the very beginning of my driving lessons, I lived in fear of breaking the transmission on my father's pick-up truck. In later years, he confessed that he chose that vehicle to teach me to drive because he reasoned that if I could manage its crash-box transmission, I'd be able to drive just about anything. However, for a nervous 15-year-old, it mostly inspired fear. I did learn to drive it perfectly well, of course, and I can now drive just about anything with a transmission of any kind and shift its gears without grinding.

But, I digress. Although that Dodge pickup's transmission had four speeds, normal driving was done using just three of those gear ratios. First gear was called either "compound low" or "granny gear." Its exceptionally low gear ratio was designed only for starting out from a stop with a heavy load. Top speed in first gear was about 7 mph. It was pretty useless, except that it enabled that pickup, with its 107 horsepower flathead six engine to climb almost any grade, no matter how steep. Very slowly, but it would go up any grade, almost. I do not remember ever having the need to engage first gear, though, and don't remember my father ever using it, either.

Even that "granny gear," though, would not have gotten up the "steep road" Bernie Sanders is facing. It is too steep for any vehicle to ascend, as Senator Sanders will learn. There is no gear ratio low enough to accomplish what Bernie is trying to do.