Stuff

New thoughts

When you are over 80, you start to think abut the life you led at 14.

Some memories are cringe worthy and some are pretty good.

Let’s start with the cringes.

When I was 16 we had a 1951 Ford, which I drove competently.

One foggy day we were coming back from a trip to our mountain cabin and I decided to pass a slow truck.

My dad was lying down in the back seat so did not see anything.

When I was right alongside the truck, a car came directly at us.

I swerved in front of the truck pretty fast, and the opposing car went into the ditch. Lucky it was not the river, or tule marsh.

My dad asked what happened as he felt the sudden swerve, and I calmly answered that someone went into the ditch but was o.k. My younger brother and I never mentioned it for about 40 years.

I have written about this before, but forget when.

 Now for something better, a challenge met.

When my mom was in the hospital dying of breast cancer, my brother Roy ,aged about 11, took it upon himself to play with our 1946 Ford Coupe. He liked to run it up the neighbor’s sand hill and turn it over on the side.

So while my dad was at work, my mom in the hospital, I could not add to the family drama by leaving it, and there was no neighbor to call upon to help.

I did what any teen farm girl would do, crank up the Mc Cormack -Deering tractor and go to work.

First I had to hand crank it, which got it chugging along.  Then I had to fix a tow chain to the axle of the coupe, and tow it upright. 

I am sure the neighbors across the street witnessed this but never let my dad know of our antics.

That was one challenge met that I am proud to remember.

Who else got to play with cars and tractors like we did?