Driving Lessons
Probably, later this week I will take Austin for his learners permit. We are going to home school for Driver’s Education. We will enjoy the driving time together as we usually do when I am driving. We both become philosophers when in the front seat of a car. We have already solved several of the world’s problems on the way to school or the batting cages.
One of my earliest recollections is driving. When I was 4 or 5 Dad used to let me steer the old Ford pick up truck in the hay fields. He would pull the hand throttle out slightly and get the truck moving very slowly. My job was to steer the truck between 2 rows of hay bales without running over any. Dad or Dad and a hired hand would load the hay as we slowly moved down the row. When the truck was loaded, Dad would step onto the running board, open the door, slide me over and stop the truck. Most of the time I think I did pretty good but I do remember a couple of very big slow bumps as I ran over the one of the bales.
As I got a little older (8 or 9?), I could reach the clutch well enough to start and stop the truck, but not always very smoothly. On more than one start, my clutch release was so rough much of the hay was shaken off the truck. Dad and the hired help had to reload the truck several times as I learned. As I think back, I must have shortened the life of a few clutches.
About as early as I learned to drive the truck in the fields, I learned to operate the old farm tractors we had. By the time I was 10 or 11, I was plowing or cutting hay by myself. We had this model 60 John Deere, which was made in the early 50s’. It had a hand clutch you pushed to engage and pulled to disengage. The front wheels were the old tricycle style, set very close together.
Not too long after I was able to operate the tractor in the field, Dad let me drive from our house to one of the fields we farmed. This was quite a treat. I drove the tractor, in road gear the 2-3 miles running wide open all the way. I was probably going about 12-13 miles per hour, but sitting between the big rear tires with no fenders, the wind in my face, going down a gravel county road, I thought I was really moving. Then I had to stop.
My destination was a field Dad was renting from a couple of elderly neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Byrum. There was a 90-degree turn over a slight mound of gravel into the field. The field gate consisted of two parts, a small old single metal bed frame on one side and a much longer very weathered wooden gate opening out in the opposite direction. I approached still at top speed. A few feet before the entrance I pulled the throttle back, but momentum carried me at near the same speed. I was going too fast to safely make the turn and started pushing the clutch, and then frantically pushing the clutch so I could brake and make the turn into the field. The clutch didn’t release and I pushed harder. Dad, who was watching from just inside the gate yelled “Pull the clutch”, but I was going too fast and went straight over the old wooden gate and through the barb wire fence. As the fence was splintering and wires were snapping, I realized what Dad was yelling and pulled the clutch. The engine disengaged and I was soon stopped. The old gate looked like it had exploded. Some pretty good kindling was all that was left. For the next hour I helped Dad fix the fence and build a new gate. Because wire and a couple of cedar posts were our only building materials, we built a wire gate. I think Dad was afraid Mr. Byrum would be upset with the loss of his old gate. As it turned out, he had no attachment to the old gate and actually seemed glad to have the lighter weight wire gate. And my driving improved.
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