On the Road
I was headed home, going through North Dakota, east bound on I-94 not far from Bismarck. The odometer on my Subaru read 299,999. I watched as she rolled over to 300,000 miles. I pulled over to take a picture because it was a pretty special moment for me. This is more miles than I’ve put on any vehicle I’ve ever owned!
Right in front of me was mile marker post 122. Sitting on the shoulder of the road, I began reflecting on some of the many places we had traveled in this Subaru, the fun we’ve had, the work we’ve done, while accumulating this many miles. There have been a lot. I pulled back onto the roadway, and resumed driving.
I also started thinking about different vehicles I’ve owned. There were only a few that came to mind, that I liked enough to have driven over 100,000 miles and each had a manual transmission. A 1973 Opel GT. What a fun car, I drove it until the back axel literally fell off the car! A 2002 Chevy Prism. At 198,000 I gave that car to our daughter Delaney who
named it Penelope, and ran it to 214,000 miles. That Prism had survived eleven deer hits. One particular vehicle carried a lot of memories, was a 1987 Ford Ranger – my first brand new vehicle.
The Ranger was bright red with white accent on the bottom. She had a four-cylinder engine, fivespeed transmission, air conditioning, AM-FM stereo, with a cassette tape player, and a cloth interior. I added the cruise control. That truck worked hard.
One Sunday afternoon, Jim Hetzler, the salesman from Glover Ford who sold me the truck, saw me hauling hay down the highway. Monday morning, he asked me, “Good Lord man, how many bails did you have on there?”
“Between the truck and the trailer...about 200.” I told him.
“I’m surprised you didn’t break the axle and ruin the truck.” Jim said.
I bragged, “She’s a Ford; she can handle it!”
I didn’t really have two hundred bails, it was probably more like 180...maybe 190, but then again, some of the bass Jim claimed to catch weren’t really twenty pounds, either. But I digress.
As hard as the truck worked, it played equally as hard. The Ranger pulled my boats and trailers taking me and my friends fishing, camping, and traveling to an awful lot of places. She’d been pretty much everywhere coast to coast, including Canada. Stu Stetter is a good friend who spent a lot of time in that truck with me.
Stu was about ten years younger than me, and still in high school when I first met him through my younger brother, Steve. Stu and I had a lot of fun together and were becoming good friends.
On one trip, Stu and I were going fishing in Colorado; we took my brothers Steve, and Richard along with us. Stu called his mom from a pay phone. (Cell phones didn’t
exist yet.) Chris asked, “How’s the fishing?”
“The fish weren’t biting so we moved to a different spot,” Stu told his mom.
“Oh? Well, where are you now?” She asked.
Stu replied, “L.A.”
“California??” Chris questioned with disbelief.
Stu calmly said, “Well, yeah mom. California, that’s where LA is.”
Four grown men, in a little Ford Ranger, traveled across the country. That’s just how it was in those adventurous days of the Red Ranger.
When we would head out on a road trip, whether near or far, we’d slide a John Denver tape into the cassette player. We’d sing our hearts out while cruising down the highway to wherever we were going. We belted out some pretty good harmony! Once in a while, John would get the words wrong, to any given song, but Stu and I didn’t mind. We kept singing with him anyway,
as we racked up the miles on ‘The Roaring Red Ranger!’
John Denver wrote a song that became a favorite of ours, called, “On the Road,” - a theme song, if you will. The opening line goes like this: “Back in 1958 we drove an old V-8, and when it’d gone a hundred ‘thou, we got out and pushed it a mile.”
From that song, Stu and I agreed, when the Ranger hit one hundred thousand miles, we would get out and push her one mile. We even shook hands on it; a pact was made that day, between buddies. Shortly after high school, Stuart left to join the United States Marines Corp. I felt lost without my friend across town to call on a moments notice and say, “Let’s go fishing.” While he was away at boot camp, Camp Pendleton, in California, the Ranger turned over 100,000 miles. It seemed we had missed our opportunity.
Opportunist
I do not consider myself a forager when out and about in the outdoors. I do not usually go in search of edible things found in nature. I am more of an opportunist. When I find something good to eat, I do not pass it up. When a person spots a thicket of ripe raspberries while driving through the farm, it would be foolish not to stop and eat one’s fill.
Last year, while checking the boundary fence with the neighbors, I found a tree had fallen on the fence. I grabbed the chain saw and proceeded to cut the log pulling the fence down. In the process, I noticed some golden oyster mushrooms growing on the side of the tree. Who would pass up an opportunity like that? I picked all the fresh ones and headed for the house. The fence would keep, the mushrooms wouldn’t. We fried them up and ate them that night. I vowed to myself to remember the spot they were growing to get some more this year.
Not being a true forager, I did not make a point to search the woods for the golden oysters this year. When
I happened to be in the area, I would drive by the downed tree to see if any mushrooms were growing on it. Since we had no rain in over a month, the logs were dry, and nothing was growing on them. Last week we finally received a much-needed rain. Just out of curiosity, I decided to drive out and check the mushroom tree. To my surprise, a whole crop of golden oyster mushrooms had grown in less than twenty-four hours. I picked enough for a meal for my wife and me, leaving the rest for another day. Fried in butter with a little garlic and onions, they made a delicious topping for a steak.
I have discovered, deer, though they live by foraging, are also opportunists. If they happen onto something tasty, they will eat it even if that is not what they were looking for.
My neighbor, Aaron, sells DAC deer products which includes minerals to enhance antler growth and attractant blocks to draw deer to a person’s property. I got one of each block just to see what would happen. I put the attractant block in front of one of my trail cameras where I had gotten 89 pictures the week before. The results were really fun. The following week that camera contained 601 pictures. Deer love those blocks. Raccoons are also attracted to them. I had about twenty-five pictures of raccoons coming and going, about twenty-five pictures of deer arguing with raccoons, and
about five hundred fifty deer of assorted sizes, both bucks and does, helping themselves. According to the time stamp on the photos, it took about two and a half days of around the clock visits to make the block disappear. After that, traffic decreased to the normal pace. The deer also made an opportunist attack on my garden. I am sure they did not go looking for green beans but while passing through my yard, they noticed a few rows of vegetables behind a high electric fence. They
had no trouble jumping over the fence and eating my beans to the ground in one setting. Some go out looking for particular things growing wild. Others take it as it comes. Deer, being opportunists, stumble across delicious treats like an apple flavored block or a few green beans. I likewise, get lucky at times. I find some good things growing in the wild and take full advantage of them, since I will not be enjoying green beans.
(Just the Other Day cont’d from pg 2)
Though distance separated us, our friendship was strong as ever. In the summer of 1991, I had to drive to Norman, Oklahoma, south of Oklahoma City. I needed to drop off a pair of wing flaps from my dad’s airplane, to have them repaired. My sister Barbara, lived in Norman, so I would be stopping there for a visit as well.
Since Stu happened to be home on leave, I asked him if he wanted to go on a road trip. We slid in a John Denver tape, and sang our hearts out while cruising down the highway, Oklahoma bound. We belted out some pretty good harmony! Once in a while, John would get the words wrong, but Stu and I didn’t mind. We kept singing with him anyway. We made one last fuel stop giving us enough gas to reach Norman. Back on the road, we were so caught up in conversation and the music, that I wasn’t paying enough attention to the truck. Ouch! The gas needle was very low! No problem. I knew this truck well. She would make it to the gas station at exit 110, where we would turn off, going toward Barb’s house.
The truck chugged a couple times, coughed, sputtered, and died. I pushed in the clutch, slipped her into neutral and let her coast down the shoulder of I-35 as far as she could go. When we stopped, I turned on my flashers and set the parking brake.
Stu proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms, just what he thought of my fuel consumption calculating skills. “You can just start walking to get gas!” He said.
I retorted, “I’m not walking any place, I’ll call Barb, and she’ll bring us gas.”
“She’s going to think you’re stupid.” He warned. Fortunately, I got in early on the new cell phone craze, and fortunately we had a signal. I picked up the handset on my big black Motorola bag phone and dialed my sister’s number. I told Barb, we ran out of gas on I-35 only seven miles north of her turn off, and asked if she could bring us a jug of
petro.
“You got a turd in your pocket or something?”
Stuart demanded to know, “ What’s this WE business? we weren’t driving, you were!”
Barb laughed at me, then told me what she thought of my fuel consumption calculating skills. When she finished her spiel, she said, “I’ll have to find the gas can, and get gas.” Then Barb said, “I’ll have to go past you to the next exit, and come back around to meet you. I’ll be there as soon as a can.”
I hung up the phone. Stuart looked at me and shook his head. We had nothing to do but sit and wait. The odometer read 106 thousand and some odd miles. I pointed to the front of the truck. Lined up with the front bumper, was the green rectangular sign; mile marker post, 117. “We still owe her a mile, ya know,” I said, Stu grinned mischievously, but dead serious, “Let’s do it!” Both our doors opened and we jumped out simultaneously.
I turned the ignition on to unlock the steering wheel and to make sure this mile would register on the odometer. With my left hand on the door jamb, and my right on the wheel, I pushed from the driver’s side, while Stu pushed with both hands on the passenger door jamb.
Now, the people of Oklahoma are quite friendly to Iowans, so long as there is not an Iowa State University - Oklahoma University, game in progress. A total of nine cars and trucks stopped to assist us.
“You boys need some hep?” “Y’all need a jump, I got cables.” “I got a can of gas if y’all need it.” “I got a good chain, I can tow all y’all’s to the next station.”
We told them each, “Thanks anyway! We’re okay! We’ve got help coming.”
“Then why y’all still pushing?” One cowboy in a pickup wanted to know.
He walked along as Stu and I kept pushing. “We’re going to push it a mile,” I told him.
“What fer?” He asked.
“It’s kind of a personal, emotional thing” I answered. “Suit yersef,” he said, then returned to his truck. Brap bap bap bap bap, went the exhaust on his lifted Chevy pickup with the oversized tires, as he drove away.
I checked to make sure the coast was clear behind us, then we pushed harder, building up speed as we crossed the ramp at exit 116. I never realized until we were pushing the truck, just how wide those ramp openings are. We needed to make sure we were clear of it before any cars taking the exit, came speeding up on us.
The truck seemed to be getting heavier. “Are you even pushing,” I questioned. “Or am I doing this along?”
“Shut up!” Stu snapped, adding, “We’d already be to your sister’s house if you didn’t push like a girl.”
A brown Pontiac, Grand Prix, honking in the north bound lane, caught my attention. The driver had her arm through the open window, raised high in the air. It was my sister Barb, smiling and waving. Boy, was I glad to see her.
We caught some shade from the hot sun, as we pushed through the shadow cast by the overpass above. It seemed like a good place to take a break, but we were determined to press on and do this mile non-stop! The highway was taking a slight incline, which is the equivalent of a steep hill when pushing 3,000 pounds of steel.
Barbara pulled up behind us with her flashers on. She tooted her horn and hollered out the window, “You boys need some gas?”
“Were going to push it to mile marker 116.” I called back to her.
“What for?” She queried.
“It’s a thing,” Stu hollered back.
“Suit yourself.” She said and followed along slowly.
The road leveled off, maybe even started downward a little bit. Stu
made sure the coast was clear as we picked up speed to cross the ramp coming back down onto the highway. We huffed and puffed and tried to keep the pace going the rest of the way. Finally, we stopped, our front bumper lined up with mile marker post 116.
I reset the parking brake, then ran around the truck to meet Stuart. We exchanged high-fives and a hug, we were both smiling and grinning. “We did it!” I said with a great sense of pride!
“Yeah, Buddy!” Stu chimed in.
We both knew we had just accomplished something most people would never think of...let alone, actually do. Silly as it may seem, it was important to us. We always said we would - and now we did.
I think about that day often. It was the summer of 1991. Barbara, much too young, has since passed
away. Stuart got married; he and his wife Wendy, raise two boys, our girls are all grown with families of their own. I wonder if Stu and I will ever make another cross-country trip. I kept driving toward Bismarck. The odometer now read 300,011 miles, I started singing, “Back in 1958, we drove an old V-8, and when it’d gone a hundred ‘thou, we got out and pushed it a mile.” My heart was full, like Stuart was right there with me. “Sing with me, buddy,” I encouraged Stu. I could feel him singing harmony, “We didn’t know who we were, we didn’t know what we did. We were just on the road.”