My Life…. Looking Back From the Future
Standing on a mountaintop looking out, can provide clarity… it just may not be the sort of clarity one might expect. As surely as the past has formed the future, so does the present form the past. I accepted some fine challenges when choosing my parents. For Mom and Dad, I am truly grateful. You gave me worthy challenges. With the future sight of the present, I recount what I see.
My grandfather had gifted his daughter and Dad a quarter acre, where the next summer Dad built the family a rather small three bedroom house.
It was perhaps the following year that I began helping Gramps; walking over the hill to the big house, perhaps a quarter mile up the road. Often when we had visited before, he would let me ride with him on the tractor, perched on the toolbox on the fender, or sometimes standing in front of him and steering. Often I would jump off to open or close a gate when we went thru. When he had baled hay, we would go out with the tractor and hayrack. He showed me how to stand on the clutch to stop the tractor. After that he would put the tractor in low and slow as I drove while he pitched hay on the hayrack. When we had a load, I stood on the clutch till the tractor stopped in the thick stubble, and he would take it out of gear and drive back. I thought I got quite good at steering and standing on the clutch.
It was a warm summer day several weeks later when I walked to his place, then out to the a field where he was finishing combining oats. Perhaps I was seven, or eight. His Alis Chalmers pulled the combine thru the last strip of standing oats, then he alongside the little Ford, which was hooked to the grain wagon…. the hayrack frame now removed and the grain box installed on the wheels. Chaff flew in the slight breeze as the auger from the combine shifted its load to the wagon.
Gramps asked if I thought I could drive the Ford behind him back to the farm. Sure, I thought, eagerly. At last a man job. He cautioned me to stay well behind him, and that he would stop to open the gate when we left the field. He started the Alis, heading for a hard packed drive. I followed slowly, letting him open a gap of about 70 feet. Then I carefully moved the throttle to match his speed. The ride was smoother on the hard pack.
When he reached the gate, Gramps got off the Alis and came around to see how I was doing. Expertly I had cut the throttle, and stood on the clutch. Only…. the tractor kept on rolling. It was slowing, but still rolling on the hard drive.
“Step on the brake!” he shouted, “Step on the brake.”
I’d heard Dad talk about brakes. He was a mechanic. Cars had brakes.
Desperate, I stood with both feet on the clutch, standing as hard as I could, and steering as straight as I could. Straight for the back of the combine. The Ford banged into the back dead center of the combine. Gramps was grumpy. He reached over and shut off the ignition.
“Why didn’t you step on the brake?”
“Where is it?”
He pointed to the foot pedal on the other side of the tractor. Ahh. So that’s what that pedal was for.