Raking & Burning Tumbleweeds

David suggested that this escapade qualified for telling:

One of my most vivid memories of the farm was the time that I was raking up tumbleweeds in the field east of our home. Old Maud was pulling the big dump rake, on which I was seated on a metal seat. We would go back and forth to rake up the weeds that I would dump in a row so that we could burn them. The ground was hard and bumpy so that the big iron wheels would bounce around as we moved back and forth across the field. In order to fiinish this task as soon as possible, I conceived a plan to start a small fire in the tumbleweeds caught by the rake tines so that the burning could take place while I was raking, thus saving time.

The flaw in this plan became apparent when I tried to trip the big tines that held the weeds, but the weeds were so tangled that the tines wouldn't lift high enough to realease the weeds. There were two ways to raise the tines: by stepping on a round metal trigger with my foot; or by reaching back to a long steel handle and pulling it forward. Neither of these methods seemed to free the weeds that were burning right below my iron seat. The fire was very hot on my legs and the smoke was suffocating.

Since I was concentrating on trying to raise the tines, and to avoid the heat, I pretty much ignored Maud. With reins rather loose, Maud started to trot (maybe she felt the heat on her hind legs too) which meant that the rake was bouncing around. It was getting so hot on the metal seat that I couldn't sit on it and found it necessary to stand up, all the while stepping hard on the metal trigger and/or reaching back to pull the lever....with no success. Meanwhile Maud was trotting faster, in fact she even started to lope, so that I was fearful of being thrown off the rake in front of the metal tines. But finally the weeds were dislodged through our racing around the field in an area where we had already gathered the weeds.

Following my getting control of Maud and stopping the rake, I sat there contemplating my good fortune in surviving this crazy escapade and vowing never to try it again.

Plymouth car wreck

The summer following my junior year at West Side High School my pal, Lynn Neuenswander, and I dated two girls from Dayton---Alice Moser and Mary Lou Balls. After taking the gals home about midnight, I drove our Plymouth half a mile to an intersection at a T-corner. As I approached the corner, I tried the brakes but they did not slow us much. I was rather sleepy and did not hit the brakes again. So the car headed directly into the big ditch bank with a crash.

I was draped around the steering wheel, and Lynn who was asleep in the back seat was thrown forward over my head into the front door that had spring open, and then he bounced back near the left rear wheel outside the car. After I squeezed out from behind the steering wheel, I called to Lynn who lay moaning on the ground. He had a concussion and babbled words I couldn't understand, so I was really scared. I stowed him in the car and then sprinted non-stop back to the Ball's home. There I called home to let them know our disaster. After a couple of hours, Lynn's parents picked us up and took us home. After a couple of days Lynn recovered his senses.

The Plymouth was towed to White's garage in south Dayton, where it took a couple of months and $500 to repair. I earned all of the money to pay for the repair over the ensuing year. Our family was relegated to riding in our old 1935 Ford truck until the Plymouth was repaired.

Throw the baby off the wagon

Mom said I was a baby when this adventure occurred. We were living on the Taylor place west of Bear River. We had gone down to the banks of Bear River to get a load of sand, presumably for a sand pile for me. The wagon had a heavy load pulled by four head of horses. As we were going up the steep dugway from the river to the road at the top of the hill, the pin came out of the doubletree, so that the horses with Dad holding the reins went on up the dugway. The heavily loaded wagon first stopped and then started backward downhill to a steep drop off into the river.
Mom was sitting on the high seat with me in her arms. Evidently Dad yelled to her to jump because the wagon was headed straight for the embankment into the deep river. She probably did not feel she could jump with me in her arms, so she threw me over into the side of the dugway next to the hill.

I have never learned if she then jumped because the wagon veered into the side of the dugway. In any event, Dad came down with the four horses to hook up with the loaded wagon for the trip up and back to our home. Later I grew to love to swim in Bear River, but that was not the time.

John Deere Tractor Wreck

My closest call with death came in what I believe was the summer of 1945 (15 years old). Dad had bought a new John Deere tractor, of which he was very proud. It was green and tall and fast.

One day I drove it up the hill on the road to Weston to pick up our mail at the intersection beyond the canal flume. Then I drove it up the road to our neighbor's, Wash Thompson. I can't recall why I went there, but after a few minutes I decided to lead for home.

From their barn there was a long straight driveway to the Weston road, where you had to turn right or left onto the road. I put the tractor in high gear, probably to show off to the Thompsons. As I approached the road, the tractor was probably going 20 miles per hour. I didn't think to slow down, partly due to the fact that the mail, which was on the seat under my right thigh, was jostling loose. I reached down to secure the mail just as the tractor was entering the roadway. Since I needed to go left toward home, I quickly pulled the steering wheel left and more quickly let it go to reach back across to grab it on the right side and pull it across left again to make the turn. But as those will know who have driven tractors, they are engineered to very quickly return to front wheels to straight ahead. So I was rapidly heading for the barrow pit on the opposite of the road.

Then a flash came to my mind that I could touch the wheel brake on the left to slow the left rear wheel, thus swinging the tractor to the left. By the time my foot hit the brake the tractor was almost to the barrow pit. The only problem was that in my quick reaction, I hit the right wheel brake, not the left one.

The next thing I knew I was on my back in the barrow pit with the tractor upside down on top of me. Actually the tractor seat was across my groin, pinning me to the ground. The tractor was still running and the huge rear wheels were turning. The left wheel was on top of my right leg pulling it under the wheel.

The engine finally killed, about the time that the Thompsons came running up to see if they could help. After extracting me from the tractor, they pulled the tractor upright. The tall exhaust pipe was bent upright, and the engine started. So I drove off home with much dread over ruining the appearance of Dad's new cherished John Deere Tractor.

I don't recall what Dad said when I got home, but it seems that he was very kind to me and didn't punish me for my foolishness in ruining his prized tractor.

I have pondered many times this impossible survival of what should have been severe injury or death. The incredible speed of the tractor flipping over so fast that I was not aware of it, and slamming into the barrow pit, so that I was not bruised except for where the seat arm had pinned me to the ground is astounding to me. I can onlly assume that angels protected me.