Practice indeed makes perfect. I quit practicing, though, thus quit being able to do a few things I once really enjoyed. These things.

Crochet. I learned to crochet a basic afghan when Jim and I first married nearly thirty-three years ago. Our gift to one of his sisters and her family the second Christmas together was an afghan I worked long and hard to complete by Christmas Eve. It was the biggest crochet project I'd ever done. Actually, the only crochet project I ever completed. The very last one I'd ever done. (I used to know how to macramé, too, though I honored no one with a gift of such handiwork.)

Write in shorthand. I took Forkner Shorthand my sophomore and junior years in high school. (I think those were the years. I no longer remember things like I used to, either.) I was very good at it. I have numerous spiral notebooks I used as journals during those years, all written in shorthand. Shorthand I can no longer read. So a few years ago I bought a Forkner Shorthand textbook on eBay, thinking I'd recall the wacky writing again in no time. Nope. Not at all. I still cannot read those old journals. Fortunately no one else can either.

Play piano. I always wanted to learn to play. I finally got up the nerve, time, and money to do so when I was inching toward 50. I took weekly lessons for nearly two years. I learned a lot. Then I lost my job, lost the time and money, and lost every bit of piano playing ability I once had because I didn't practice. I'm going to get back to practicing... and hope I pick it up better than I did the shorthand.

Swim. Another thing I always wanted to know how to do was swim. I decided to learn when I turned forty, at the YMCA. I wasn't great, but I could save my life if I fell out of a boat, I think. Then we stopped going to the Y, stopped swimming. And I stopped knowing how. I'm staying out of boats until I relearn.

Play backgammon. When Jim and I first married, we were very, very poor. We spent many a night playing backgammon instead of going out on the town as young couples often do. Then our income increased. We got cable. We started going to concerts, to movies, out to dinner. We stopped playing backgammon. We miss it. Time to pull out that ol' set from the game cabinet and start over, I think.

Drive a manual transmission. My first car was a standard, a Ford Maverick. It was the cheapest car on the lot when I needed a vehicle in an emergency as a junior in high school. Jim and I had only recently started dating, and he taught me how to shift and such by driving around and around and around with me in the parking lot of the Sonic Drive-In where we both worked. I drove that Maverick on into the marriage. We sold it when we needed a vehicle that held three car seats for our three baby girls that arrived in whiz bam succession. I've not driven a manual transmission vehicle since selling the Maverick.

Which is why Jim will be driving that gorgeous 2015 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon above, the next vehicle on the docket for me to review. Jim gets to drive the Wrangler; I get to write about it. (And maybe together we'll sneak away to a parking lot and I'll give manual transmission another go 'round. Maybe. If Jim's willing to teach me...again.)

Today's question:

What did you used to know how to do but no longer can?