The summer of 1951 my Dad told me to drive the 1949 Ford pickup from the meadow where he was haying to the house. That would not be anything unusual except I was only six years old. The pickup was stick shift and I was not tall enough to reach the foot feed and brake without standing up and I could hardly see out when I touched the foot feed. He gave me a quick lesson, shut the door of the pickup and walked away. I slowly let up on the clutch and jerked, slipping the gears, stalled, and tried again. Finally after many tries I took off across the meadow toward the house. Somehow I managed to make it across the ditch and up onto the road. I even turned off the road onto our drive successfully. The problem came when it was time to stop. My little legs were not strong enough to depress the brake far enough to come to a complete stop. I knew I did not want to smash into Grandma’s house so I aimed toward a tree. The tree was just what I needed. I parked in among several 50 gallon barrels and with the bumper crushed against a large elm tree. Dad was upset with me and Mom was angry at Dad. The pickup and I were not hurt but Dad did not ask me to drive again for quite awhile after that.
I blended one sheet of Scrapgirls paper with my photo of the pickup and added one grasshopper embellishment also from Scrapgirls.
BMU_FTDO_Paper_Thoughts
ABL_Prairieland_Emb1_Ghopper-Brown
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