Returned from the void!

Yeah, I've been neglecting this blog of mine, and I'm not sure how to pick it back up except to admit it.

Something about being emotionally hammered into the pavement, I just didn't have enough left of myself to emote any more. For quite a while.

But I've been working on that. And figured I can't restart this any sooner than when I actually do, so here I am.

Let's see, what sort of story can I write about today?

Relatively harmless, I think I'll go with that. Statute of limitations should have run out by now. Fill in more details on an earlier story.

Mother used to go out drinking, when the mood struck her. And bring home agreeable company, when the mood struck them. Once, when I was about 16, she brought home a guy from the bar, who was part of a custom-cutting crew. He was from Saskatchewan, and claimed a high percentage of First Nations ancestry. (Back then, I don't think that's what he or mother called it, though. I blame that on alcohol and/or other recreational chemistry and the mid-80s.) Drove up to our house in his great big 10-wheel Mack grain truck. At 3 in the morning or so. (Right after the bar closed, of course.)

Mother woke me up, because he was such a knowledgeable character, and he had so much stuff to teach me, donchaknow… So he showed me how to do a four-strand (flat) braid in my own hair, which was pretty cool, I must admit, and then mom pestered him a little more, and we three (or was it four? I don't remember if we woke up the fourth?) trundled out so he could show me how to drive his truck.

I'd been driving stick for over a year by then, but this was more than my three-on-the-tree. And air brakes are a bit more complex, I must admit. So he drove us out to about, oh, the Rexford turn-off, I think, with me just watching everything he did, and him telling off all the details. Then he turned around, and headed West again. And had me climb into the driver's seat.

I was nervous as hell, but excited, too. He was carefully telling me everything to do, and I think I was doing OK. Not much traffic at 4 am, luckily. We came even with the wrecking yard, where there was someone pulled over with a flat tire, and he had me pull over, so he could get out to change their tire for them. Then we got back in and headed on through town, and all the way out to Levant.

I turned around by myself, there, and on the way back, he didn't offer any help or advice, just let me drive (and make any little mistakes) as I would. No, I didn't run over any road signs or parked cars, thank goodness.

We got to the middle of town, by the bar where they'd met, and they had me stop. He and mother got out, and he told me to drive the truck home, they were taking mother's car home. They'd see me there. I just about died on the spot, but what could I say? No, thanks, I'll walk home? Granted, it was a fairly safe little town, but it was mighty dark, I'd be all alone, and if nothing else, there were crews in town!

What I didn't realize 'til I got home is that one of us had set some of the air brakes (I don't remember doing it!) at that stop in town, and I didn't release them all the way home. Oh well, it's only 30 mph and only about 12 blocks. And in the final analysis, I can't go back and fix it! I know I didn't hear tires chirping, or any other weird noises, but it sure didn't want to go very fast. So I parked it out on the street (it was bigger than our driveway, even if I was brave enough to try to stuff it in the driveway) and shut it down. (That's when I noticed the brakes, because I was supposed to lock 'em down then.) For my very first solo, I give myself no better than a B, at best. If I'd needed to go further, I'd have figured it out eventually. 

Somewhere in the meantime, they'd gotten home and locked themselves in mother's room. She came out the next day, sometime, but he didn't appear again for like four days. Seriously. I had begun to wonder if she'd killed him. Every day, I'd come home from school to find that truck still there, and wonder. Until one day, it wasn't. He woke up, realized his crew had moved on, and lit out like his ass was on fire. Likely it was. Being down one truck surely made 'em cranky.

Is that the sort of adventure you get with a sane parent? I don't know. I'm certain you're supposed to take some paper tests and get more training before driving a truck with air brakes, but (like many farm kids before and after me) I skipped that.