Ned Luce

As a product of the U.S. Midwest I suggest this time of year is supposed to be hot, just not here in the Great Pacific Northwest. But it is. 

Our daughter from Seattle and her family came out for most of last week. They even stayed over another two days because of the heat. 

So, all that good heat exposure training we gave her in Lees Summit, Missouri in the 1980s has gone to waste. 

She loves to claim “child abuse” when she and her brother were kids since I refused to turn the air conditioning on in the house before Memorial Day. The story has a few roots in fact but is really nothing but a legend intended to hassle me, her father. I mean I lived there, too, and it was hot and humid. 

We accompanied them to the beach near the Inn at Port Ludlow since, well, they carried our kayaks down there. BJ and I even paddled out and really enjoyed tooling around “burner point.”

The highlight was our son-in-law helping us get back out of the kayaks without us having to roll over into the water. Somewhere there must be a lift designed to help folks exit a kayak without giving up all semblance of balance and dignity. 

Our son-in-law is a marine biologist so we all went up to Termination Point next to the Hood Canal Bridge at low tide to explore the sea life. We went with them carrying our camp chairs with us. 

BJ was much more interested than I digging in the sand looking for various clams, mussels, etc., even coming across a jelly fish which was probably not thrilled about being left on the beach whilst the tide went out. They all seemed to be enjoying the wetness while I enjoyed the camp chair and watching the seal watch them and the 20 other folks roaming the beach. 

Then our daughter and family spent time and money last week at the Marine Science Museum at Fort Worden, in the O’Yummy frozen yogurt store in Port Townsend, and the Key City Fish Company for crab, smoked salmon and shrimp. BJ raised our daughter to keep Jefferson County “green.”

I am a regular reader of and grammatic admirer of Wall Street Journal columnist of Dan Neil. The title of his column is “Rumble Seat” and deals with all manner of automotive items, particularly cars themselves. 

The past two weeks he has reviewed the Porsche GT3: “The Last of the Red-Hot, Gas-Powered 911s”, and the “Tesla Model S Plaid: Feel the Surge, Down to Your Core.”

The GT3 will go from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds and has achieved some level of notoriety lately because California has ruled the manual transmission edition of the car is too loud. It has therefore been banned from running on the public highways of the state. The electric motor powered Plaid will go from zero to 60 in 2 seconds. Neil also comments on the exceptional handling of this car while driving the twisty Route 299 in California. “Forget planking, Route 299 is the core workout you’ve been looking for.”  

With a shift into lower gear I note a column in last Sunday’s Seattle Times headlined, “As stick shifts fade into obscurity, collectors jump at an opportunity”. As Bob Sass of the New York Times observes, “They’re not extinct yet, but the end for stick-shift cars is coming.” 

Bob says that U.S. News and World Report notes the only 18 percent of Americans can even drive a stick and only 1 percent of new cars being sold have a manual transmission. Ferrari has not offered a stick shift option on their cars since 2012. Apparently Porsche, BMW, Lotus, and Aston Martin are the only auto makers even offering a manual transmission now. 

I am not able to speculate if this is good news or not except it also sounds like the collector car market is putting a premium on stick-shift cars due to their growing rarity. 

Do you wonder if there will be a premium placed on the dwindling numbers of us who can actually operate a stick-shift? Yeah, I doubt it too. But I really like the sound of that GT3.   

Love a curmudgeon, keep cool, and have a great Fourth of July. 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident who can go from zero to beach chair in less than a minute. Reach Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)