The Run-Away Flatbed

Once while Ben and I were tooling around his parent's farm, we spied an old truck.  It was a big two ton  cab-over flatbed truck that was hiding in the tall weeds behind a farrowing barn.  "What's the story on that old truck?" I asked.  "Dad used it a long time ago to haul stuff" he replied.  It was sitting there all by itself, kind of peacefully aging in what seemed to be its death bed.  As curious teenage farm boys so often do, we decided to venture through the weeds and investigate.

As we climbed over the front wheel and plopped down in the dusty vinyl seats we could smell that unique "big truck smell".  I won't say that it is a particularly pleasant smell though. You might could imagine the old farm truck.  It would have certainly spent long days sitting beside dusty fields, occasionally getting rained in.  Also, the dust, corn feed, and grit from years of use had formed a thin crust on the floorboard that crumbled under our feet.  All of these things plus old potato chip sacks and coke bottles combined to have that distinctly pungent "big truck smell".  Neither bad, nor good, it is just distinct.  As our nostrils filled with that smell we gazed at all of those gauges, levers, and buttons.  How invigorating it would be to be able to drive such a monster!  Bear in mind, that we were probably not even fourteen yeas old at this time.

We admired the wagon wheel sized steering wheel and crooked gearshift while noticing how high up we were.  You could see everything from up there!  It was then that one of us noticed the key in the ignition.  "Do you think it would start?" I asked.  "I know one way to find out!" chuckled Ben.  With no further discussion of the matter, Ben reached over hastily and turned the key.  The next thing we knew, the big ugly beast roared to life as if it was thanking us for one last shot at glory.  There was no pumping the accelerator, spinning the starter, or anything...just VROOM!  We were dumbfounded as we looked at one another with our eyes bigger than half dollars.  The old rascal was saying "Point me somewhere and lets GO!".

Seeing as it was Ben's tail on the line, and not mine, if someone were to be displeased about us hi-jacking the old spook, I hoped he was gonna try to drive it.  I gave him all the encouragement he needed simply by being in the passenger seat.  Ben was not a person in need of  ANY encouragement about things like this.  He is the very definition of "shoot first, ask questions later".  I could really envision him shooting a case of ammo into the woods and then walking in to see if he hit anything.  From watching his dad drive, he knew how everything worked so it was no more than half a second before the surge of granny gear slammed my head backwards.  We were off! 

For a few minutes we circled the farrowing barn, drove through the weeds, and over big bumps in awe of how high up we were.  This big old truck would go anywhere you pointed it with those big tires!  Ben and I both were avid ATV'ers, so it wasn't long before we were bored with this spot.  Nearby was a drive that would take us deeper into their farm.  It promised to lead to bigger and better ways for us to be manly truck drivers.  Up to this point, granny gear was about as fast as we had gone.  We would power up the little embankments around the barn and let the engine slow us down on the return. 

Once we got to the main road, in typical "Ben Fashion", he floor-boarded the old monster, and then found another gear.  It probably wasn't second gear either, because I remember it being much much faster than granny gear.  The truck was doing us proud while celebrating its new found freedom.  It throttled up and was humming along at about ten miles per hour when all of a sudden a clump of wires dangling from underneath the dash began to move...a lot.  He motioned for me to look at it since the engine noise was too loud to talk over.  As we were looking more under the dash than at the road, we noticed that it was a BIG SNAKE shaking those wires!  At that instant, it thrust itself downward into the floor board and went crazy!  I don't remember seeing Ben even try to stop before he flung his door open and jumped out!  Well, I wasn't about to sit in a truck being driven by a chicken snake, so I jumped out too!  Once I got off the ground from my little tumble, the rear of the truck was passing by, leaving nothing but thin air between Ben and I. 
We couldn't really say anything other than some colorful words we wouldn't want our mothers to hear.  We trotted behind the runaway beast in panic.  Thankfully, it was only seconds before it edged into the ditch and died.  No one was coming down the road, and no one got hurt. Whew!  As soon as the adrenalin began to subside, we began to laugh hysterically.  Then we began to ponder what the consequences for Ben would be when his dad got home.  "We could get back in and park it back where it was" I said.  Ben replied "If we get back in YOU ARE DRIVING!".  Needless to say, I had no plans in my near future of re-entering that cab, so we just left it there.  It was crooked, in a ditch, on the side of the road. 

Soon, Ben's father returned home from work.  After being informed of the day's events, his dad laughed in his usual subdued manner.  Charles Wayne's little chuckle, Ben and I learned throughout our young years, had the unspoken words, "did you learn anything?" concealed inside.  It turns out there were no consequences for our adventure, and his dad returned the beast to it's hiding place.  Although there were many other joy rides, none had a chicken snake doing the driving.  Memories like this remind me of how blessed I was, even before I realized, to grow up in the country with loving families and friends all around.