Precious Non-Seat Time

[Gary_in_Indiana]

<font color="blue"> I still don't know if I agree with a 13 year old on a 'CUT' </font>

I doubt I'd have been a hit with you when, at 13, I was driving either the combine or the truck alongside during harvest season. If I drove the truck (with an old 5+2), I also took it to the elevator in town. It was a different time then, because I remember seeing parents of classmates, classmates and even younger siblings of classmates in line at the elevator. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

If you grow up in the country, it's just different. There's equipment around and you learn about it and how to operate it. If your Dad's out in the field a couple miles away you're the one who gets sent out there to bring him supper so he can keep working. In the days before the little four wheelers, you just hopped in the pickup truck and went.

It's kind of funny, but you never gave a second thought to doing something like that because it was work. You also knew that if you even thought about taking that truck somewhere for yourself, you'd better apologize for letting your mind wander like that. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( If you grow up in the country, it's just different )</font>

It really is. When I was 13, I was working with the tractor when Dad wasn't even home; he'd be working in town. And I had my own .22 rifle and 12 gauge shotgun to hunt alone for squirrels and rabbits to eat before I was 11. And caring for the hogs and my horse and milking the cow was solely my job from the time I was 10. And there was no such thing as an "allowance" from mom & dad; if I wanted money, I just had to figure out how to earn it. I collected scrap metal and sold it, I picked up soda bottles along the road and sold them, and I picked and sold plums and pecans and okra in different seasons.

 

[thcri]

Bird,

I am an owner of a Heating, Air Conditioning and Plumbing Contractor. There is 80 people on the payroll. I would give anything to find an employee that grew up in the same conditions you did. You just don't find kids anymore that had that responsibility. Even a lot of the farm kids today just aren't there. The fact that you had to work on the farm just to have the right to sit at the kitchen table, and then if you wanted some spending money for yourself you had to earn it. I had it some what the same way but not as young.


Murph

 

[ns_in_tex]

Hi Bird,
Seeing your occupation, you might appreciate this.
I grew up in Tarrant county, not far from you.
At age 13, a DPS officer stopped me on the highway and asked for my drivers license, then proceeded to follow me home, go down in the field & ticket my dad for letting me drive, or something to that effect. I drove the family car all the time to do family errands, such as haul drinking water. Go to the feed store, ETC.

I did get my drivers license as soon as I turned 14.

I also remember flat brakeing 60 acres with our farmall cub. Jobs like this, many times called for plowing all night long. Sure was hard to stay awake, just before daylight.

I suppose, that might be considered child abuse, nowadays.
I don't regret a minute of it and think it was good for me.

 

[Bird]

Neal, I didn't move to Texas (Plano) until I was almost 17. I guess the one thing that was different from a lot of others' experience was that my dad never allowed any of the kids to drive the family car. He got me a 10 year old Chevrolet (1946 model) with only 96,000 miles on it when I turned 16 and took drivers ed in high school; told me that was my car if I could keep it running. But doesn't every kid have a favorite aunt? /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Dad knew that his oldest sister let me drive her car ('47 Ford coupe) all the time from the time I was 11, and his mother let me drive her car ('50 Plymouth) from the time I was 13, and he'd periodically fuss at all of us for it. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Probably sheer luck that I never had an accident and never got caught. But yes, I've taken a few underage drivers home to their parents. Also had one 14 year old run from us after midnight one night, lost control, ran into a house, knocked a big hole in a bedroom wall, part of which fell on the couple in the bed (fortunately didn't hurt them), threw it in reverse, backed out and took off again, then stopped a few blocks later when the transmission blew. Turned out he had sneaked out of the house and took his dad's new chevrolet convertible without permission. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Don't know what dad did when he got the kid home, but he did make a comment at the station that we should have beat the ?????? out of him. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif