I promised, in an earlier post, to relate to you the easy way of driving a car through the back of a garage. I had forgotten this pledge until my lovely mother reminded me of it and how angry the incident had made her. So, as promised, the easy way to drive through a garage wall.
As I may have mentioned, when I eventually got my driver's license my Mom was kind enough to supply me with a Chevrolet Chevette to drive. For those too young to remember, a Chevette was a hatchback vehicle, mine was a four door stick shift. It had seen better days but still ran just fine and was more car than a lot of kids had.
The Chevette gave me mobility and also helped out my Mom. My Dad had passed away shortly before I got my license. As a matter of fact, my uncle took me to take my license test the day of my Dad's funeral. I guess they thought it would take my mind off Dad's death. It didn't but was a nice gesture. I have four siblings and they needed ferrying about. Having a second driver in the family was helpful.
A license and car gave me kind of a big head. I had the power and wasn't afraid to use it. In my defense, having four arguing kids wrestling in the back seat was disconcerting in a car that weighed hardly more than those four children. A firm hand was necessary. I also understood, then, why my Dad used to get so hot when we argued behind him.
When one of these arguments was going on, we were on our way home from town and the car was rocking back and forth on the road from all the silliness going on in the back. I had already warned the yahoos several times and the wrestling kept up. Finally, much like my Dad, I lost my temper and pulled over about a mile from home. I ordered everyone out. They were stunned into submission. Everyone climbed out and I took off. They made it home about twenty minutes later and never failed to calm down when asked nicely afterwords.
My sister, Barb, was closest to me in age. Only eighteen months younger, she was determined that I not have things my own way very often. As the oldest girl, she was a strong supporter of rank based on seniority. One day coming home from somewhere with Barb in the passenger seat, I was pulling into our "garage."
The garage was an open faced shed structure built to the side of another shed on the property. It was essentially a three sided pole barn. The barn columns were telephone poles and horizontally installed two by fours provided a means to attach corrugated steel for siding. It was a nice way to keep the rain and snow off the car parked inside.
As I pulled up to the garage, I noticed a bicycle laying on the concrete slab inside. In the interest of convenience, mine, I told Barb to go move the bicycle. She promptly told me where to stick it. We argued for a minute and then, disgusted but unwilling to leave the car and lose face, I opened my door and leaned out. I leaned out as far as I could but couldn't reach so I stuck one foot our the door, intending, I suppose, to kick the bicycle out of the way. Slowly, I released the clutch and the car rolled forward. I kicked the bike and depressed the clutch.
The thing about a clutch is that it removes the motive power of the engine from the wheels. It is not however, a brake. The car kept rolling toward the back of the shed. If nothing else had happened, I probably would have bumped the back wall and that would be the end of it. Nothing else did not happen.
As the back wall eased toward us, I had the bright idea to use the brake. To do this, I had to release the clutch. Remember the leg hanging outside? If you have never driven a stick shift, it is important to know that two legs are required to make the system work.
The other thing about a clutch is that when released, the engine re-engages with the tires and the car moves forward. Brakes don't work well when fighting against an engine. It didn't really matter whether the brakes worked or not though. I had missed the brake pedal in my panic and stomped on the gas pedal.
The end result was that the car fairly leaped at the back wall and through it before I got my leg back in the car and applied both brake and clutch appropriately. The front of the car and the tires promptly dropped off the back of the concrete slab and stopped.
That is the easy way to drive through a garage wall.
Luckily, the tires did grab the edge of the slab and the car moved back onto the slab. The two by four holding the siding wasn't destroyed, only pulled loose. The car had a minor scratch on the fender. The siding was kinked but not totally ruined. I patched it all up in less than an hour.
Mom was pretty hot, as I mentioned already but calmed down when she realized little permanent damage was done. There were some new ground rules concerning the driver and passenger responsibilities after that too.
Another positive note is that I got another little story out of the experience. Lucky me. Unlucky garage.
Showing posts with label Childhood memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Childhood memories. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Me as a kid - Part 3
Originally posted in Facebook by Greg Stier on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 11:22am
I was talking to someone about the earliest memories a person can recall. We were comparing experiences. I was amazed at what I could dredge up from the depths. Most of my memories are vignettes, just little pieces of time from several years of my life. They are vivid memories though, bright clear pictures in my mind, attached to a feeling and an action.
I have lived in eight places throughout my life. I was born in Greensburg, Indiana and first lived in a house near Millhousen, Indiana. My parents rented a two story brick house where we stayed till I entered second grade. I don't remember much from this house, only a playset in the back, the milk box out front, and waving to a man on a tractor who was bush hogging the pasture next to us. Mom told me it must have been a farmer named Mente Ruhl who owned the property. The house is still there. One of my uncles bought the land next door and built a home there.
When I was two or three, we moved to a big white house near Westport, IN. There is a lot more available in the memory banks from that house. The house was a two story wood frame with white aluminum siding. It was surrounded by cornfields as far as a person, three feet tall, could see. We had one visible neighbor, across the road and up the hill. There were apple trees in the back yard and maples in the front. The yard was huge. Near the road was a concrete block detached garage with huge swinging doors and a dirt floor. To the right of the house was a barn with a haymow that Dad built stairs to reach. We used to play up there. I had an awesome toy horse with springs at four corners. It was ride'm cowboy whenever I was in the haymow.
Westport was where I learned to ride a bicycle, first down the easy slope in the back yard, then on the gravel road in front. It's hard to believe in this day and age of not letting a child out of your sight, but I used to ride as much as a mile or a mile and a half away from the house with my best buddy Wade Wiley, who's sister, Stephanie, I had a heavy crush on.
At one point, Mom and Dad added on to the back of the house. I don't remember much about the construction but I remember what it looked like when it was done. There was a Berber carpet upstairs, olive green and brown I believe. The kitchen counter was orange, bright orange. There was also a cool spiral stair to the basement. I remember the huge pile of dirt from excavating the basement too. Before it was graded, it was our mountain and our jungle. We would climb it like Everest and play hide and seek in the weeds that grew on it. The original house stairs had a landing halfway and we used to stand on the landing, reach down as far as possible and swing/launch ourselves to the floor below.
There was a blue metal fan that I figured out how to use making sheet igloos. By weighting the edges of a bed sheet with some of Mom's two million Readers Digest condensed books, and blowing air underneath with the box fan, there was an instant club house. We would crawl under the sheet and talk through the fan as it cut our voices into robot sounds.
We would sometimes sing along as Dad played the guitar. Our favorite song was Country Roads. It was our first request every time he pulled out the instrument. Mom and Dad loved to sing together and we were lucky to have that music.
I had the upper bunk bed and remember liking the taste of the wood railing. I scraped the finish off several inches running my teeth up and down it. I was a sleep walker as a kid. Apparently Mom heard a noise from my room one night and found me standing on my upper bunk, still asleep but believing I was in the restroom. I, apparently, got pretty good distance.
I first drove a riding lawn mower in Westport, not often or for long, but I did it. Today, I can't even let my ten year old on the lawn mower because he isn't heavy enough to keep the safety gadget, under the seat, from turning off the engine.
One time Barb and I raced around the house and as we reached the porch, I slammed into the wall. Barb hit half wall and half door. Her hand went right through the glass and cut her wrist pretty badly. I can still see the blood pumping out of her arm. That was intense for a five year old. I think it would be intense today.
I remember getting in trouble because a neighbor gave us a jar of dandelion jelly and when she visited again, I told her we still had it. I just didn't understand that not having eaten it would be a bad thing. We felt like we were in trouble when a big rain would make the basement wet. Dad would have us down there with huge sponges and buckets, sopping up the mess. It is my least favorite memory from that old house.
When I was six or seven, we moved to Bartholomew Co. near a town called Hartsville. We stayed at this house until I was halfway through college and the majority of my childhood memories are there but I still treasure the glimpses of life I remember from Millhousen and Westport.
I have lived in eight places throughout my life. I was born in Greensburg, Indiana and first lived in a house near Millhousen, Indiana. My parents rented a two story brick house where we stayed till I entered second grade. I don't remember much from this house, only a playset in the back, the milk box out front, and waving to a man on a tractor who was bush hogging the pasture next to us. Mom told me it must have been a farmer named Mente Ruhl who owned the property. The house is still there. One of my uncles bought the land next door and built a home there.
When I was two or three, we moved to a big white house near Westport, IN. There is a lot more available in the memory banks from that house. The house was a two story wood frame with white aluminum siding. It was surrounded by cornfields as far as a person, three feet tall, could see. We had one visible neighbor, across the road and up the hill. There were apple trees in the back yard and maples in the front. The yard was huge. Near the road was a concrete block detached garage with huge swinging doors and a dirt floor. To the right of the house was a barn with a haymow that Dad built stairs to reach. We used to play up there. I had an awesome toy horse with springs at four corners. It was ride'm cowboy whenever I was in the haymow.
Westport was where I learned to ride a bicycle, first down the easy slope in the back yard, then on the gravel road in front. It's hard to believe in this day and age of not letting a child out of your sight, but I used to ride as much as a mile or a mile and a half away from the house with my best buddy Wade Wiley, who's sister, Stephanie, I had a heavy crush on.
At one point, Mom and Dad added on to the back of the house. I don't remember much about the construction but I remember what it looked like when it was done. There was a Berber carpet upstairs, olive green and brown I believe. The kitchen counter was orange, bright orange. There was also a cool spiral stair to the basement. I remember the huge pile of dirt from excavating the basement too. Before it was graded, it was our mountain and our jungle. We would climb it like Everest and play hide and seek in the weeds that grew on it. The original house stairs had a landing halfway and we used to stand on the landing, reach down as far as possible and swing/launch ourselves to the floor below.
There was a blue metal fan that I figured out how to use making sheet igloos. By weighting the edges of a bed sheet with some of Mom's two million Readers Digest condensed books, and blowing air underneath with the box fan, there was an instant club house. We would crawl under the sheet and talk through the fan as it cut our voices into robot sounds.
We would sometimes sing along as Dad played the guitar. Our favorite song was Country Roads. It was our first request every time he pulled out the instrument. Mom and Dad loved to sing together and we were lucky to have that music.
I had the upper bunk bed and remember liking the taste of the wood railing. I scraped the finish off several inches running my teeth up and down it. I was a sleep walker as a kid. Apparently Mom heard a noise from my room one night and found me standing on my upper bunk, still asleep but believing I was in the restroom. I, apparently, got pretty good distance.
I first drove a riding lawn mower in Westport, not often or for long, but I did it. Today, I can't even let my ten year old on the lawn mower because he isn't heavy enough to keep the safety gadget, under the seat, from turning off the engine.
One time Barb and I raced around the house and as we reached the porch, I slammed into the wall. Barb hit half wall and half door. Her hand went right through the glass and cut her wrist pretty badly. I can still see the blood pumping out of her arm. That was intense for a five year old. I think it would be intense today.
I remember getting in trouble because a neighbor gave us a jar of dandelion jelly and when she visited again, I told her we still had it. I just didn't understand that not having eaten it would be a bad thing. We felt like we were in trouble when a big rain would make the basement wet. Dad would have us down there with huge sponges and buckets, sopping up the mess. It is my least favorite memory from that old house.
When I was six or seven, we moved to Bartholomew Co. near a town called Hartsville. We stayed at this house until I was halfway through college and the majority of my childhood memories are there but I still treasure the glimpses of life I remember from Millhousen and Westport.
Me as a kid - Part 2
Original post in Facebook by Greg Stier on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:34am
Oh what a family too. Eleven uncles and aunts, fifty first cousins (give or take), and only God and Grandma know how many second cousins now that everyone is having kids. Anyway, with a family like that there was little need to turn to strangers for entertainment. It seemed like every other weekend we were rotating to one grandma's house or the other. There was nearly always someone around to play with or raise hell with, depending on who you ask.
Official family functions at the Grandma Stier's house were sure to have volleyball as part of the fun. The Stier family used to take volleyball pretty seriously. They are a competitive bunch, and mostly in pretty good shape. The games could get pretty tough. I wanted to be part of that group out there when I was little. They were having so much fun, I wanted to jump right in. Luckily there was always room for a little one on the court and it was usually a while before they realized that most of the shots were going around them. I got my share of serves and eventually grew into the game. It was as fun as I thought it would be and I'm still looking for a league to join on a regular basis.
Grandma and Grandpa Moeller's house had different allures. First of all, Grandma kept chickens. When grand kids were around, those chickens probably didn't sit on an egg more than five minutes before a grubby hand was shoved under their butt to steal it. The only defense the chickens had was the meanest rooster in Indiana. That nasty so and so used to strut around the yard waiting for an excuse to kill a child. It chased adults too. Grandma didn't like it one bit and used to give us permission to kick it if we were attacked.
If the corn was in, we would climb the huge pile of on- the-cob corn in the corn bin and slide down like it was a ride at some country theme park. There were machines of mysterious nature all over the farm to be examined and speculated upon. It was even more exciting when Grandpa would show us what they really did and how they worked.
Inside the enormous wood barn, with its hand hewn beams and columns there was the mother of all rope swings. The rope was an inch and a half thick and reached thirty or forty feet up to a beam over the main aisle of the barn. It was a rush to really get going in that thing. We would all wait impatiently for our turn to blast off.
Also in the barn was the haymow. Grandpa stored bales of hay for feeding his cows above the stalls. The bales, for the uninitiated, were about 2'x2'x4' of tightly packed hay held together with two pieces of twine. We used them as gigantic Lego blocks. We built forts and tunnels all over that barn. We chased each other and had wars with the old mud wasp nests hanging from the ceiling. They exploded with a very satisfying dust cloud but hurt if they actually hit you. Luckily we had terrible aim or fast reflexes. Martha, Grandma's spinster sister, used to scold us for making a mess of Grandpa's barn and coming in the house covered in hay but Grandpa never seemed to mind much. Martha lived with Grandpa and Grandma. She was tall and a little scary when I was little because she wasn't too patient with the little ones but as I got older, she mellowed a lot and I found out she was a wonderful lady.
Another perennial activity at our house was cutting wood. We burned wood for heat and had to travel to the farm on a pretty regular basis to get a truck load for the next winter. Dad used to bring a bag lunch and we would stick glass bottles of Coke in the creek to cool, safely held by an old mesh potato sack. Woodcutting wasn't my favorite job as a kid. When I was little the wood was huge and the only job available for someone of limited muscle was dragging brush. I must have piled half a forest before I got big enough to be trusted with the more dangerous jobs of cutting little limbs with an axe and, eventually, a chainsaw. On the way home we would stop at the Letts gas station and buy some candy as a reward for all the hard work. Dad believed in rewards for a good attitude during slave labor.
What a rush that chainsaw was, and is, moving through hard wood like a knife through butter. The moment before a dead tree fell, when the direction of travel was, so to speak, up in the air, left you wired to run any direction at a moment's notice.Then at the end of the day, there was the satisfaction of visible progress. A fence row was clear. Cut wood was piled in the back of a truck for a useful purpose. There are few activities I find so immediately satisfying. There is the almost total focus of splitting piece after piece of wood off a large round. Swing! Crack! Turn. Repeat. It is honest, uncomplicated labor with few political overtones, no one to offend and a good work out to boot.
One of Dad's enthusiastic hobbies was hunting squirrel in the woods and when I got a little older, he started taking me occasionally. I didn't enjoy it at first, mostly because we had to climb out of bed at 5:00am to get to the farm before the squirrels started moving. Think about it. I had to beat a squirrel out of bed. What does that say about me? Who has more sense? Anyway, I eventually got into the spirit of being in the woods so early that the world was just waking up.
I never cared much if I got a squirrel. I don't like the smell of boiling squirrel anyway. Baked and barbecued is a bit better. So, as I got older I developed the philosophy of going for a walk with a gun. When I found a nice place to rest, I would take a little nap. Any squirrel that woke me up probably deserved to die. One time while practicing that philosophy, I opened my eyes to see a red fox staring at the idiot sleeping against the tree. I didn't move. I was totally captivated, having never seen one so close in the woods. It was an experience I really enjoyed.
We also camped at the farm a couple times a summer, usually in conjunction with cutting wood. We weren't the hard core rough-it bunch of campers. There was always a cooler of goodies even though most of the food was cooked over a camp fire. Mom would usually stick in a pan of baked beans, which Dad loved, to go with our hot dogs and some Little Debbie snacks for dessert. We slept in tents, on air mattresses intended to float in a swimming pool. These took approximately three days to blow up and caused dizziness and nausea as all the useful air in our lungs was forced into them, but were much more comfortable than the ground.
Mom was usually conspicuously absent at these events. She preferred a bed to a sleeping bag. I'm sure it was a much needed break for her. Raising five kids as a stay at home mother, she probably had a little party while we were gone. Dad enjoyed teaching us a little something every trip. One time it was tree names and leaves, another, animal tracks, cooking over a fire, setting up a tripod, and most importantly, what NOT to wipe with when hovering behind a tree. We would wade in the creek and wander in the woods exploring this little kingdom away from home.
Hope you enjoyed. More later..
Me as a kid - Part 1
Some of you may have seen the first few posts before. They were previously posted on Facebook in the notes section but this is more fun and I hate an empty page. I figured this would be a good way to start.
by Greg Stier on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:08pm
When I was little there was very little to worry about. We wandered in the woods. We threw rocks, shot bottles, rode bicycles, and swam in the creek. If I added up all the hills and valleys I climbed as a kid, Everest would seem short. It was a wonderful childhood.
I had company in sisters. There were three people around at any given time to fight, tease, scare, or disgust. I also had a little brother but he got poked and teased by the sisters, so I didn't have that responsibility.
I was an awkward kid, like most kids. I didn't really know where I fit in but I had a few friends and we had fun. My best friend Stephen and I spent a lot of time wearing a rut between each others houses. He was a real farm kid, with real farm animals.
I liked to go to his house and help. I saw calves and piglets birthed, pigs castrated, fed motherless calves, and rode horses. It was a blast.
We weren't real farm kids. We just lived in the country. We did have rabbits, but not the kind you could name and get friendly with. People came by to pick up dinner on a regular basis.
To be fair we had a pony for a short while. It came with the house. Sugar was his name and he seemed very big in my memories until I saw a picture of my father astride him. Dad was six feet tall and the picture shows his feet hanging about six inches off the ground. It's amazing what perspective can change. Sugar disappeared like several of our animals seemed to. I don't remember when. I must have blinked. It makes me wonder how much I missed as I drifted around in my little kid world.
Some things you never forget though. I remember putting on our oldest tennis shoes, cut off jean shorts and old t-shirts to swim at Anderson falls. There was a huge chunk of rock in the stream and we would climb it and jump, climb it and jump, climb it and jump... There were crawdads to catch, the falls to walk behind if it had rained recently, sand on the shore to dig and pile. Sometimes we would bring huge inner tubes from tractor tires and take a lazy ride down the creek to the bridge near the house. Frequent stops were mandatory. The minnows must be chased and, if you caught a crawdad, so must the sisters. If the crawdad caught you, it wasn't quite as fun, but the sisters liked it better.
The bridge near the house was a big metal truss affair which eventually received a wooden floor when the metal one rotted out too bad. If the creek was deep enough, we would hang from the under-structure and drop the ten or fifteen feet into the water. The carp that swam in the shade of the bridge would scatter downstream for a while until we left their lazy resting place.
When I wasn't in the creek, I was in the woods. Dad and Mom owned fifteen acres, half of it hills. I wandered every inch of it at one point or another. All the neighbors had the same kind of properties so we would take off on hikes across the country, no destination in mind and get there in plenty of time.
When I was thirteen, Dad got a Honda dirt bike from a guy at work and I spent the next three years pretty much riding that wonderful death trap. Stephen had one too and we tore up the woods making tracks. We would climb the steep hills to see if we could make it to the top or if the motorcycle would end on top of us. We went mudding in the swamp, crossed creeks, raced, and drove on the road when we shouldn't have.
At one point, I built a ramp, and boy, was it a ramp! I could get thirty or forty feet of air time on that thing. Stephen was pretty impressed but forgot to pull up his front tire. He got thirty or forty feet of road rash. Luckily the road was field dirt and not asphalt but he still limped for a bit and he was done with the ramp.
The motorcycle was my baby till I turned sixteen and got the Vette, Chevette that is, or in the parlance of the day a sh*tvette.
To be continued...
by Greg Stier on Monday, February 15, 2010 at 11:08pm
When I was little there was very little to worry about. We wandered in the woods. We threw rocks, shot bottles, rode bicycles, and swam in the creek. If I added up all the hills and valleys I climbed as a kid, Everest would seem short. It was a wonderful childhood.
I had company in sisters. There were three people around at any given time to fight, tease, scare, or disgust. I also had a little brother but he got poked and teased by the sisters, so I didn't have that responsibility.
I was an awkward kid, like most kids. I didn't really know where I fit in but I had a few friends and we had fun. My best friend Stephen and I spent a lot of time wearing a rut between each others houses. He was a real farm kid, with real farm animals.
I liked to go to his house and help. I saw calves and piglets birthed, pigs castrated, fed motherless calves, and rode horses. It was a blast.
We weren't real farm kids. We just lived in the country. We did have rabbits, but not the kind you could name and get friendly with. People came by to pick up dinner on a regular basis.
To be fair we had a pony for a short while. It came with the house. Sugar was his name and he seemed very big in my memories until I saw a picture of my father astride him. Dad was six feet tall and the picture shows his feet hanging about six inches off the ground. It's amazing what perspective can change. Sugar disappeared like several of our animals seemed to. I don't remember when. I must have blinked. It makes me wonder how much I missed as I drifted around in my little kid world.
Some things you never forget though. I remember putting on our oldest tennis shoes, cut off jean shorts and old t-shirts to swim at Anderson falls. There was a huge chunk of rock in the stream and we would climb it and jump, climb it and jump, climb it and jump... There were crawdads to catch, the falls to walk behind if it had rained recently, sand on the shore to dig and pile. Sometimes we would bring huge inner tubes from tractor tires and take a lazy ride down the creek to the bridge near the house. Frequent stops were mandatory. The minnows must be chased and, if you caught a crawdad, so must the sisters. If the crawdad caught you, it wasn't quite as fun, but the sisters liked it better.
The bridge near the house was a big metal truss affair which eventually received a wooden floor when the metal one rotted out too bad. If the creek was deep enough, we would hang from the under-structure and drop the ten or fifteen feet into the water. The carp that swam in the shade of the bridge would scatter downstream for a while until we left their lazy resting place.
When I wasn't in the creek, I was in the woods. Dad and Mom owned fifteen acres, half of it hills. I wandered every inch of it at one point or another. All the neighbors had the same kind of properties so we would take off on hikes across the country, no destination in mind and get there in plenty of time.
When I was thirteen, Dad got a Honda dirt bike from a guy at work and I spent the next three years pretty much riding that wonderful death trap. Stephen had one too and we tore up the woods making tracks. We would climb the steep hills to see if we could make it to the top or if the motorcycle would end on top of us. We went mudding in the swamp, crossed creeks, raced, and drove on the road when we shouldn't have.
At one point, I built a ramp, and boy, was it a ramp! I could get thirty or forty feet of air time on that thing. Stephen was pretty impressed but forgot to pull up his front tire. He got thirty or forty feet of road rash. Luckily the road was field dirt and not asphalt but he still limped for a bit and he was done with the ramp.
The motorcycle was my baby till I turned sixteen and got the Vette, Chevette that is, or in the parlance of the day a sh*tvette.
To be continued...
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