My daughter, Alicia, is starting to want to drive. As soon as we are headed out of town toward
home, she starts asking. “Can I
drive?” She is pretty relentless and
other than the fact that it’s a little stressful, I cannot think of a reason
not let her drive! She is actually a
pretty good driver, beings how she is our little dare devil. Faith is not so quick to want to learn, but its
coming. It is a rite of passage with all
kids, despite their parents’ wishes!
All this got me to thinking about when I started learning to
drive. When we lived in Loveland
Colorado, my grandpa had a farm. It was
a pretty good definition of a family farm, my uncles worked on the farm right
along with him (when they finished with any outside job they might have.). When haying time came, a trailer was pulled
out to the field and everyone either threw bales on the trailer or stacked. My brother and I’s job was to drive the
tractor while the adults stacked/threw hay.
We couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old, so we were scrawny
little things. My uncle George used to
put the tractor in low and put one of us on, and away we would go. Seems simple, doesn’t it?
Add to this story the fact if we wanted to stop, we didn’t
have enough weight in our behinds to push the clutch down….or that the first
few times we were scared to turn the steering wheel! Oh the fear, that first time! I remember I was excited and scared all at
the same time! My goal at the time was
to be just like my hero...my Grandpa. I
was going to be a farmer when I grew up!
So every time I had a chance to get on a tractor, I jumped at it. Of course at that age…opportunities were few
and far between! One of my favorite
times was always haying time…..
We got to the field and my Uncle George put me on the
tractor, put it in low gear and said “don’t run over any bales”. Seems simple doesn’t it? I was so scared that first time (what 5 year
old wouldn’t be?), my heart was racing and I couldn’t seem to set still. We started down the first rows of bales and I
kept a pretty straight line, one of my uncles jumped up on the tractor and
turned it when we got to the end of the row…starting us down a new row. All of this was really exciting to a 5yro…at
first.
A tractor in low gear can only be exciting for a little
while…after about the third row, I realized that my job had limitations. I could not get off; I wasn’t supposed to
watch the hay being stacked…just stare straight ahead…and “don’t run over any
bales!” If you’ve ever been around 5yro’s,
then you should know what happened next…I stopped paying attention to what I was
doing. I didn’t have to turn much, but…..
The next thing I knew we were headed right for a bale…and I panicked! I started hollering and yelling that we were
going to run over the bale! Uncle George,
he just run ahead grabbed the bale and threw it on the trailer. He was a pretty understanding guy …the first
time! This whole incident had spooked me
(I did want to do a good job, so they’d bring me back), I was pretty sharp for
a few more rows…then boredom set in again.
Next thing I knew, we were heading straight at another bale….but this
time we kinda hit it….Uncle George was a little less understanding this
time. He said, “pay attention, DON’T RUN
OVER THE BALES!”
I kinda fell into a pattern that seemed to affect my Uncle
George’s blood pressure. I was pretty
sharp for 4-5 rows and then my 5yro attention span would kick in (or out, would
probably be a better statement), and we would be headed for a bale. Now Uncle George was starting to get a little
lit up over having to run ahead of the tractor and pull a bale out of the way
and his “don’t run over the bale” statements were starting to have new words
added to them. Things like “turn the
wheel”, “you can turn the wheel, ya know”, “did you not see that bale?” and
other words that I wasn’t supposed to say back then. It all finally came to a head at the end of
the day.
I was tired and sleepy and no, I was NOT paying
attention. I was probably pretty lucky
that I was staying in the seat! But at
one point I ran the back tire up on one bale and almost immediately got one
stuck between the back tire and the body of the tractor. George was not amused! I can still see him trying to pull that
wedged bale out. His face was redder
than a fire engine and he was grunting and straining and cussing…all the while
trying to talk to me…well talk is a pretty weak word. George was screaming. Screaming like a man who was just short of
digging a hole and burying somebody, I figured that somebody was probably
me! Now I was a pretty smart kid, so I was
just past arms length….I wasn’t that
tired! I can still hear that last rant, I’m
talking a rant of epic proportions…which was full of words that I’d get in
trouble for saying. Words that I really
try not to say today! Here is the gist
of it…cleaned up…but you get the idea…
“Are you blind or
stupid? Don’t talk back to me! How can you run over so many bales? Don’t talk back to me! Did you not see them coming, all you had to
do was look? Don’t you dare talk back to
me! All you had to do was turn the wheel
or hit the brake, is that too hard?
Answer me when I’m talking to you!”
As I said, I was a pretty smart kid…I finally figured out
that he did not want me to answer him back…but oh…how I tried! I couldn’t get a word in edgewise! But, for a boy of 5 years old…I sure learned
a lot of new words!
PS. This was one little episode, Uncle George was
usually pretty cool, to us boys, around the farm. Despite what happened to some of the loads...
No comments:
Post a Comment