Cars were a big part of life for a kid growing up in rural southern Minnesota.
From the time Dad first taught twelve-year-old me to drive on the old Farmall H tractor he’d bought at auction, to when I bought my cool and sporty 1971 Fiat 124 Spider (the first car I ever had financed, and the last car I would own during my East Center Street days) having a car was important. Having a cool car was the dream but have a car at all was essential.
I’ve always been a driver.
That old tractor was fun to drive and once I got the hang of it, I looked for any excuse to take it out. I’d always be the one to volunteer if Dad needed someone to take a wagon load of… whatever, down to a neighboring farm, and as soon as I was big enough to operate the other equipment we had to hook up to it, I would have gladly plowed, cultivated, hauled… anything so I could be driving.
Dad would almost always drive for any plowing and cultivating and that didn’t happen often because we didn’t plant much. Most of our land was in pasture for the cows and horses in those days. And Dad always drove when we were baling hay. My job (especially when I started getting big) was to pick up the bales and throw them up onto the wagon. I was very happy when something needed hauling but usually, if I was driving that tractor with something on the back I was pulling the manure spreader commonly known by everyone as a…
“Shit kicker”.
The Farmall could go almost anywhere and through almost anything and I loved driving it though the mud and all over our pasture. But my favorite thing was when I had to go all the way to Keith’s place (nearly five miles away) to go get something from his dad like a load of hay or whatever. That’s when I got to open it up. The tractor would get up to all of maybe thirty mph but for teenaged me, it was the funnest thing ever. The big tires would be literally bouncing and I would straighten my back to sit as high as possible on the wide metal seat (that was also bouncing) with a big grin on my face as I’d chug along the side of the county road. Cars passing by… honking if they knew me.
What a fun time. What a lucky way to grow up.
Driving.
To be continued…
