Connie Driving the Truck

This is taken from a series of stories Charlie put together

Connie Driving the Truck

This story happened when Connie was ten and Weldon about seven years old.

Connie was always a very daring type of person who thought that she could do most anything.  I guess that is probably why she felt  that since she could drive a tractor she should be able to drive a truck.

This story is written by Connie herself.

As I grew up being a farmer’s daughter, I naturally knew how to drive a tractor at a very young age.  I was always intrigued with the cars and trucks on the farm, and I couldn’t understand why my dad limited my driving to the tractors only.

One day I and my brother for one reason or another were the only ones home.  I asked my brother Weldon, “How would you like a ride around the house in the old red pick-up?”  He questioned my ability to drive, and I assured him there was no worry.  So we both hopped in.  I started it up and off we went.  We missed the house by two feet, and a tree by two inches; and I never understood why the truck wouldn’t turn onto the road I wanted it to, and we ended up stuck in a pile of dirt.  Worse of all I couldn’t get the truck started again to put it back where I found it so my dad wouldn’t now about any troubles.  As I remember, he wasn’t too mad.  He just reminded me that he had told me there is a difference between driving a tractor and a truck.

My addition:  I remember being home, but not being in the truck at the time.  I think Sara was home and she and Connie were babysitting us.  Our farm house was situated with a gravel and dirt road all the way around it.  To the North there was a patch of grass between the house and the road, and beyond that a canal with a patch of sandy soil before the bank of the canal.  It was into this no-man's land that Connie landed the truck.  That old red pick-up was always hard to start, and always made a terrific noise when being started.  It sounded like nothing else I have ever heard.  The closest is perhaps when the belt goes out of a dryer.  I just remember hearing that noise and thinking, as she tried to restart the pick-up, "Oh, Oh, Connie is going to be in so much trouble."