Tuesday, August 01, 2006

My truck story, Part I - - - - - also, Thirty-nine presents from Cousin John

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These are golf balls that John (picture link) gave to me. He found them in the Tekamah, Nebraska, cemetery. It is adjacent to the golf course.

My truck story, Part I

Cousins John and Ione and I carpooled during our years at Tekamah High School. I was fourteen and old enough to drive. I started there in the eleventh grade, after spending the first ten in one and two-room country schools. Ione was a freshman, so we both were new at this school. John rode with us during my senior year.


Dad had me fixed up with a very nice 1937 Ford, the previous (original) owner was a little old lady (LOL). That even car smelled like LOLs. It was so nice.

Then Dad decided the '37 wasn't safe enough for me because it had mechanical brakes. After one week of my enjoying the older Ford, Dad traded it in on a new 1949 Ford pickup. I think he wanted a pickup, as that was just the beginning days of Nebraska men and their pickup affairs.

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We were the cat's meow in the new black Ford pickup and didn't even know it. [I know, this picture is of a red '50 Ford pickup, it isn't the one I drove to high school.]

I got the pickup stuck twice on school runs. One was coming home from school in a blizzard and I got it stuck trying to plow and run through a deep snowdrift in the road. I can't remember how we got out. I can almost remember a friendly neighbor pulling us through with his tractor.

The other time was when the frost had gone out of the oat stubble. I didn't realize that, so when John met me at halfway down his lane I tried to turn around in the once frozen, but now thawed, field. Uncle Howard, John's dad retrieved us that time with his tractor.

I also had three accidents (that counted) with Dad's pickup. None were my fault, one was when a drunk drove across the road at me. I couldn't take to the ditch because there was a high gravel ridge running along my side of the road, waiting to be graded upon the road.

The accident that didn't count was the time I ran it into a pile of dirt in a city street and knocked most of the dirt back into the hole it came from, along with a big yellow caution barricade. I had let my passengers off at school and was picking up my friend, Lonnie, who lived in town.

To this day, only Lonnie and I know how it was that I ran over the dirt pile. It didn't look like much damage was done to anybody, so we just kept on to the school; after brooming off the dirt from the truck of course.

Wouldn't you know it, but halfway through first period I had a call down to the office. I had no idea why because I just didn't get calls to go there.

The town marshal was there with the principal. And I got the third degree. I had to convince them that it was an accident, which it was. When they believed that, I was free to go.

Maybe if I had told the whole truth of why the accident happened, the outcome might have been different. I had seen that principal grab kids by the shoulders and bang them up against the wall before, and thoughts of that were going through my mind. Just a little.

Sister, Lois, drove that pickup to high school after I was gone. She was pretty hard on it too. I know she knocked out a mailbox with it. She was in love with the song it sang as it hummed and whistled down down the road. I had forgotten that part until just now.

That Ford was a nice pickup. More about it and me later.


Comments:
I pity the kids today... they just don't have these neat stories.
 
Hi Jim thanks for the visit.
many more holiday photo's to post
over the next few days .
Yes those Termite mounds are alive and they do bite if disturbed but they are well hidden and you hardly see one .come back always updating Cheers
 
Nice golf balls. Is John keeping busy? Maybe he‘s busier
since their new minister isn‘t living in town.

I didn‘t know you got into so much trouble when you were driving to school!
You were so quiet. Guess I was, too, during high school. Don‘t know when we got braver & noisier.
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Oh Jim I loved this tale. You were a right lad then?

Take care xx
 
Our Dad wasnt perfect?

Ohhhhhhh-I don't think I want to hear the end of this story.
 
Susie, people would like you to start blogging again.
You could tell how you killed two cars before you were twenty-one.
That would take days and days of posts.
You could preview about how you chased Quailen and ran over the phone booth she finally found to hide in.
Or how the customer at the junk yard wanted to buy your Chevy.
..
 
Jim
First, I use those yellow golf balls (yeah, I switched from cougars) they are really nice in the evening and early morning.
Secondly. man were guys hard on that truck!
Ralph
 
You had some times in that truck Jim!! As Britmum says "You were a right lad then!"
 
hello my name is hans neilson I am of Chile that conoscas my blog as conosi yours I already take leave hans http://hansneilson.blogspot.com bey....
 

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