I learned to drive in the summer of 1992 in my father’s 1963 Ford Fairlane. That oyster grey four door was a classic, even then. It had modest fins on the back and holes in the floorboards. No radio meant we went through a lot of batteries in my little grey stereo. It was mostly Kentucky Headhunters, Brooks & Dunn, and Eric Clapton coming out of those speakers.

What I really want to talk about is my very first driving lesson. It was up at my grandparent’s house on a weekend my brother Mike happened to be home on leave. We had shot his new rifle that morning and Dad was going to let me take a spin in the Fairlane.

It was a sunny, perfect, early summer day in Northern Minnesota. The kind of day that makes it glorious to live in such a place. We had driven on all the dirt roads between Grandma’s and Swatara, then back up into the big city of Hill City. We were cruising home, and pulling up into the driveway, with Dad telling me how well I had done, when suddenly the car came to an abrupt stop…I hit a gnarled stump to the right of the driveway.

Dad went in to get Mike (an Army trained tank mechanic) and Grandpa (a crafty farmer). The verdict was in: I had broken the tie rod on the passenger side. First drive out of the chute and I broke the car. In rural Minnesota. On a Saturday afternoon.

My grandpa wanted to go to a local junk man to try and find the part. The guy’s place was “a few miles down the road” as Grandpa told it, but it was pretty far from civilization.

When they rolled up to the place in Grandpa’s Ford Fairmont, they were greeted by what can be best described as a three legged guard pony and a goat with sneezing problem. That goat sneezed greasy, sticky, nastiness all over my brother Mike and the car. The house had no windows…the window holes were there, just no actual window glass. And there were at least a million and a half flies coming from every direction.

My brother tells this part of the story so much better…I laugh so hard when he goes off about that snotty goat. The pony had all four legs, one was just crooked, gimpy, and didn’t hit the ground. He was horrified by getting sneezed in while pulling a tie rod off some old Ford.

Once he got a passable piece, Mike, Dad, and I went to Vernie Bishop’s to have him weld everything together to make a Franken-tie rod. How they figured that out, I’ll never know. That was some engineering, let me tell you! Mike installed it late that afternoon and we were road worthy again…but there were no more driving lessons that weekend!

My family won’t let me live this down. It’s one of my favorite stories of my childhood. It’s not a bad story to be embarrassed by, not anymore anyway. Everytime I would pull up that driveway on my own I would laugh to myself about hitting that stump.

I’m glad it was Mike that got sneezed on instead of me though…

In the summer of ‘91 I was gorgeous!