Woke up this morning thinking of the first time I was ever behind the wheel of a vehicle and flashed back to when I was 14 years old and had been farmed out to a family where the mom and dad both worked and lived on a working farm. They had 2 sons. One was named Billy and the other may or may not have been named Donnie. Little bit fuzzy on how old they were even. I do know I was picked up on Sunday night and returned home on Saturday morning. It was kind of nice though because the house had running water and I had my own little bed in a tiny room right under the attic eave. May have been small, but it was a lot more than I had at home. It did not have a door. It had one at one time, but for some reason it did not have one anymore, but I did not care. I was safe. Hotter than hell, but safe.
The mother sold Stanley products so she was gone most of the day. The father worked at a farm equipment store in Hutch as a salesman so he was also gone. My job was to tend the boys, and the chickens, and watch the old sow which was due to drop her piggies soon. And as luck would have it she decided to do that one day just before the mom and dad came home. She also began to eat them! Remember that I was 14 and probably weighed in at 50 pounds soaking wet. I stood no chance against a 300-400 pound sow in the throes of birth, but I tried. I grabbed a couple of the babies and put them in a box. She was very mad and I could not get to any more. The boys were terrified when dad came home. He immediately got his gun and dispensed the sow to the promised land and by then a friend was there and the boys and I were sent inside. There were a few piggies saved and I have blocked the rest of what happened from my mind and that is how I survived a lot of my life. Sometimes not remembering is a good thing.
But that has nothing to do with my first driving experience, does it?
The time came that a harvest was upon the land. This family owned land here and there so there was a need to move from field to field which worked well most of the time since the hired hands were there to do it. I stayed at home with the boys and it was not until harvest was over and all the equipment needed to be brought home that I was pressed into service. Everything was moved except the last piece which was a big grain hauling truck. Not an 18 wheeler, (Thank God!) but way bigger than a pickup. The wife explained to me how simple this would be to drive. Needless to say, this was a stick shift. I knew what a stick shift was and I knew what a clutch was and I knew what a brake was.
"You just push the clutch in, start the truck, let the clutch out slowly and it is in low gear so you just give it a little gas and coast the mile to the farm." OK. That sounded simple enough and after a couple times of killing it and restarting it, I was off. And then I remembered the bridge and the left hand turn I had to take. I sweated blood until I was across the bridge and headed down the straightaway. The fact that I had made it across the bridge AND negotiated the left hand turn exhilarated me! I just had to putt on down the road to the driveway and turn right, go a few yards and stop. I prayed I would not miss the driveway because there was no way in hell I would ever get it in reverse. I envisioned having to drive around a section (what land in the country is divided into) to get another chance, so I was ready when the drive came up and I whipped around the corner, steered to the center of the yard and turned the key to the off position. Then and only then, did I let myself breathe a sigh of relief and pride welled up in my throat. I had done it! I had driven that big truck across a bridge and around 2 corners! I began to dream of the day I could drive and have my own car. And here I am.
Not to be boasting, as pride goeth before a fall and a haughty spirit before destruction, but, here I am 60+ years later and I have a perfectly clean driving record. No dings in my car from me. The ones that are there were there when I got the car. No tickets for anything. I do have a lead foot at times, but don't we all? I was pulled over one night long ago in Fowler, but I think the cop was thinking to put the moves on me since I was a woman presumably alone at 1:00 in the morning. Sadly for him when he walked up to the door Bret and Shelly awoke and wanted to know what was going on now? Did I mention, God is my co-pilot?
I did not own a car or a drivers license until I was 24 years old. When I married Duane he just assumed I could drive, so I did. I was stopped one night in Liberal, Kansas with a broken tail light and the officer told me I needed a license or next time I would get a ticket for not having one. Getting a license back then was easy. All I had to do was present myself and a vehicle at the drivers license place and show them I could drive. That and $5.00 was all it took. Luckily the car I was driving at the time had brakes and such. I was not always so lucky. We usually bought a vehicle at the sale for less than $50.00 and drove it till it gave up the ghost and was abandoned in someones yard. I recall one time I had the 4 youngest and was going to see mother and the tail lights went out. I knew it was a fuse and I knew we did not keep such things around, but luckily I smoked and cigarettes were in packs with tin foil! I carefully fold up a piece of that and voila! The tail lights came on.
(I learned lots of little tricks that would do me no good whatsoever later in life. The way to seal a leak in your gas tank is with a bar of soap! When the car vapor locks, just wait till it cools off and you can get another 10 or 20 miles down the road. If you lock the keys in the trunk it is easier to use a pick axe to make a hole over the latch then it is to remove the back seat and put it back in. And for God's sake do not forget your birth control pills when you are going with your husband to visit your mother in law!) And that is my Words of Wisdom for today!
The mother sold Stanley products so she was gone most of the day. The father worked at a farm equipment store in Hutch as a salesman so he was also gone. My job was to tend the boys, and the chickens, and watch the old sow which was due to drop her piggies soon. And as luck would have it she decided to do that one day just before the mom and dad came home. She also began to eat them! Remember that I was 14 and probably weighed in at 50 pounds soaking wet. I stood no chance against a 300-400 pound sow in the throes of birth, but I tried. I grabbed a couple of the babies and put them in a box. She was very mad and I could not get to any more. The boys were terrified when dad came home. He immediately got his gun and dispensed the sow to the promised land and by then a friend was there and the boys and I were sent inside. There were a few piggies saved and I have blocked the rest of what happened from my mind and that is how I survived a lot of my life. Sometimes not remembering is a good thing.
But that has nothing to do with my first driving experience, does it?
The time came that a harvest was upon the land. This family owned land here and there so there was a need to move from field to field which worked well most of the time since the hired hands were there to do it. I stayed at home with the boys and it was not until harvest was over and all the equipment needed to be brought home that I was pressed into service. Everything was moved except the last piece which was a big grain hauling truck. Not an 18 wheeler, (Thank God!) but way bigger than a pickup. The wife explained to me how simple this would be to drive. Needless to say, this was a stick shift. I knew what a stick shift was and I knew what a clutch was and I knew what a brake was.
"You just push the clutch in, start the truck, let the clutch out slowly and it is in low gear so you just give it a little gas and coast the mile to the farm." OK. That sounded simple enough and after a couple times of killing it and restarting it, I was off. And then I remembered the bridge and the left hand turn I had to take. I sweated blood until I was across the bridge and headed down the straightaway. The fact that I had made it across the bridge AND negotiated the left hand turn exhilarated me! I just had to putt on down the road to the driveway and turn right, go a few yards and stop. I prayed I would not miss the driveway because there was no way in hell I would ever get it in reverse. I envisioned having to drive around a section (what land in the country is divided into) to get another chance, so I was ready when the drive came up and I whipped around the corner, steered to the center of the yard and turned the key to the off position. Then and only then, did I let myself breathe a sigh of relief and pride welled up in my throat. I had done it! I had driven that big truck across a bridge and around 2 corners! I began to dream of the day I could drive and have my own car. And here I am.
Not to be boasting, as pride goeth before a fall and a haughty spirit before destruction, but, here I am 60+ years later and I have a perfectly clean driving record. No dings in my car from me. The ones that are there were there when I got the car. No tickets for anything. I do have a lead foot at times, but don't we all? I was pulled over one night long ago in Fowler, but I think the cop was thinking to put the moves on me since I was a woman presumably alone at 1:00 in the morning. Sadly for him when he walked up to the door Bret and Shelly awoke and wanted to know what was going on now? Did I mention, God is my co-pilot?
I did not own a car or a drivers license until I was 24 years old. When I married Duane he just assumed I could drive, so I did. I was stopped one night in Liberal, Kansas with a broken tail light and the officer told me I needed a license or next time I would get a ticket for not having one. Getting a license back then was easy. All I had to do was present myself and a vehicle at the drivers license place and show them I could drive. That and $5.00 was all it took. Luckily the car I was driving at the time had brakes and such. I was not always so lucky. We usually bought a vehicle at the sale for less than $50.00 and drove it till it gave up the ghost and was abandoned in someones yard. I recall one time I had the 4 youngest and was going to see mother and the tail lights went out. I knew it was a fuse and I knew we did not keep such things around, but luckily I smoked and cigarettes were in packs with tin foil! I carefully fold up a piece of that and voila! The tail lights came on.
(I learned lots of little tricks that would do me no good whatsoever later in life. The way to seal a leak in your gas tank is with a bar of soap! When the car vapor locks, just wait till it cools off and you can get another 10 or 20 miles down the road. If you lock the keys in the trunk it is easier to use a pick axe to make a hole over the latch then it is to remove the back seat and put it back in. And for God's sake do not forget your birth control pills when you are going with your husband to visit your mother in law!) And that is my Words of Wisdom for today!
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