Opa's Truck
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My mom, with my grandfather's farm truck -- before I was born.
Journaling reads: Margaret Fenwick with her father’s farm truck. Photo taken in front of Margaret & Fred’s first home, a duplex on Marlboro St. in Orlando, FL circa 1962-1963
It was a beat up old farm truck. It lived beneath a carport attached to the old brooder house. By the time I knew it, the brooder house was used as Opa’s toolshed and workshop. As a child I thought my grandparents were calling it the “brother (bruder) house” in German. Later I learned it was where the eggs were incubated for the chicken farm that once operated on the property. Mom must have borrowed the truck on this day.
I learned to drive in this same truck 17 years after this photo was taken. Our dog, Sable, and I would go round in circles in the pasture, bumping merrily along while I ground the gears until I learned how to shift. I took a chunk out of the support pole for the carport the first time Dad let me try to back it out and left a dent in the fender. Only after I had mastered driving about the farm in the old truck was I allowed to take a newer car out on the road.
Now I am teaching my son how to drive. I wish we still had the old truck and the pasture. I wish he could have the same freedom to make mistakes I had. Nobody cared if I dented the truck. The dog didn’t mind when I ground the gears. There was no traffic in the pasture to worry about if I stalled. It’s all so much more complex than it was on the farm all those years ago.
It was a beat up old farm truck, but the memories it gave me are priceless.
Credits:
First Kiss of Spring by Flergs
Pretty Pastels collb (papers by Laura's Kathi)
Daydreamer by Creashens
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