TRUCKIN ON THE FARM

By James R. von Feldt

My cousin Jerry lee and his wife drove in for a short visit last week. He’s living in Arkansas. He taught school for many years. He’s retired now. We’re about the same age. I think he’s a year or two older.

We were both born in Kansas a long time ago and have fun recalling stories about when we were kids. He loves tellin the one on me about how he taught me to drive the old truck.

As per usual, in our town, you bring guests to the Gas & Grill for a bite to eat and to introduce them to town folk.

Vickie was servin and talking about how hard it is to get school bus drivers. That was all Jerry Lee needed to jump in and tell the story. He didn’t mention that neither one of us knew what we were doin.

The story starts when, after pleading and pleading my uncle Bob gave us permission to learn to drive the old pickup truck.

“But you have to keep it in the pasture,” he told us, which was OK with us. He probably thought we’d get tired trying to get it started and give up, but we didn’t.

We knew something about driving. We had cultivated several acres of beans with the old Oliver tractor and knew about the clutch, brake, gear shift, and accelerator. But the truck was different.

It was an old beat-up 32 Ford flatbed, parked by the barn under the big oak tree. It would run, but it coughed, lurched, and backfired leaving a trail of oil fog as it went. Uncle Bob used it from time to time.

The hard part was startin it, but we’d seen how it was done. We checked the oil. It was OK. We got a gallon of gas from the farm tank and put most of it in the truck tank. The starter was a metal button on the floor. When I pushed nothin happened. The battery was dead. So, we had to jump-start it with the tractor.

Finding the jumper wires took a while. They were in the barn.

We got the tractor runnin and positioned it close to the truck. We knew how to attach the wires to the batteries and let the tractor run a while to give the truck battery some juce to start with.

It took some coaxing and a little bit of gas into the truck carburetor but we got it sputterin. The truck muffler was worn out and it made a heck of a noise, more than the tractor.

Jerry Lee recalls that he was ten and I was eight at the time. I don’t remember how old I was but I could barely touch the truck clutch and brake with my feet, much less, see over the steering wheel.

It took all I had to push the clutch in to get into gear, and it wasn’t working.

I wasn’t pushing the clutch down far enough. The gears would grind. Then when I got it into gear, the truck would jump, and the engine quit. The engine needed to be revved up a bit more when it went into gear. Besides that, I didn’t know which gear was which.

Jerry got on his hands and knees and worked the accelerator to rev the motor up while I tried to get into gear.

“All you got to do is get it in gear,” Jerry told me.

The next time we tried it worked, at least, we were moving and the engine didn’t quit. The problem was that we were going backward. I was in reverse gear and couldn’t see where we were going.

Jerry got off the floor. He immediately became the navigator by lookin out the back window, and tellin me “turn right, turn left.”

The first thing I saw was when we passed the gate. We were in the pasture. That was an accident.

I blame the rest on Jerry. He’s the one that could see where we were goin.

The pasture was a big place. It had one old tree in the middle, a dry, shallow creek at one end, a few hills, an old shed that was falling down, and a good swimming hole in a larger creek. Uncle Bob had about ten cows and an old bull somewhere but we didn’t see them. An old dirt road followed along one side of the pasture.

We weren’t going very fast. I could have run along the side easy, even so, when we hit ruts, holes, and bumps we were tossed back and forth in the truck.

I had the steering wheel to hold onto. Jerry was bouncing around into me, on the floor, and almost out the window. We were laughing hysterically with every bounce and acting like idiots.

We made circles, almost hit the shed and eventually chased some cows. Then Jerry yelled “Turn, turn, turn.”

I did and we went right through the fence, bounced, almost tipped over but ended on the road.

“You turned the wrong way,” Jerry yelled at me.

I hadn’t tried to stop prior to that but mechanical breaks are hard to use and not very effective. Now I was seriously trying to stop but couldn’t. I could see the road go past me and could keep in the middle, well, kinda. We were going from ditch to ditch almost tipping over as we went from side to side.

Where are we going?” I yelled at Jerry.

“To town,” was his reply and we both laughed hysterically.

It was about that time that Jerry saw Klaus Muller, a neighbor, pull his horse-drawn hay wagon into our path.

“Stop, Stop,” Jerry yelled

“I cant,” I replied.

Jerry grabbed the steering wheel and pulled hard.

In slow motion, we went off the road, bounced over the ditch, and through the fence again. We were back in the pasture.

Jerry was driving now. One hand on the steering wheel while looking out the back window.

We made it back to the barn with Jerry driving.

“Turn the ignition off,” he yelled at me. That stopped us beside the barn about where we started from.

Well, we both got a whuppin and put to bed without dinner. Next few days we helped work on the fence.

“Not exactly school bus material,” was Vicki’s comment.

Well, that’s it for now.

From where the corn grows tall, and pigs fly.

Take care. All my love,

Grampa Jim