Beech Tree News Network

One of the jobs I’ve always believed I would be good at is that of a personal assistant.  I’ve had a lot of training for a job like that right here on the farm with Garey.  I haven’t arranged his schedule for the day or picked up his shirts from the cleaners or canceled his appointments, but I have chopped, cut, hammered, centered, held, pushed and pulled my way through nearly thirty-seven years with him.

I’ve learned to anticipate what tool he needs even before he knows he needs it.  I can guide him and his pickup back to a trailer hitch.  I can help align the tractor with the bush hog, put extra force on a cheater bar, and hold boards in place while they are being cut.  I’m pretty good help.

Occasionally, I’m not up to snuff.  I’ve hit the wrong nail with the hammer a few times, but the swelling in his thumb always goes down and the black spot fades after a few months.  If I have to hold the flashlight for an extended period of time, I’ll get bored and start looking around, which means the light beam shifts from its focal point onto some other place like Garey’s left eye.  He’ll say something like, "I can see my eye.  Shine the light on the screw."  Last week, I had a bit of a misstep which put a blotch on my record, but all’s well that ends well, I always say.

Garey sometimes leaves his tractor near a field on which he is working on our farm.  He will drive back and forth to the tractor in his pickup, and when his job is completed, I will go with him in order to drive the truck back as he drives the tractor.  We usually take the old red and white pickup, and Scout, our dog usually follows us.

Last week, as I opened the truck door, Scout decided he wanted to ride in the passenger seat.  Garey, having a real soft spot for Scout, told him to stay put.  He told me to drive and he would ride in the back.  You will have to get a good visual on what exactly is in the back of the old red and white truck in order to understand why Garey ended up riding to the far left back corner, partially seated on the tailgate.  The truck holds all the tools of our trade: a diesel fuel tank, several large hoses, two gas cans, a garden hoe, a couple of five-gallon buckets, five rolls of landscape material, a bag of hose couplings, some chains and ropes, and several empty water bottles and McDonald’s coffee cups.  There isn’t much wiggle room back there.

With Garey and Scout secure, I started off down the hill behind our barn.  Scout was barking at the top of his voice—probably showing off to every other dog in the neighborhood because he was riding in the front of the truck, while Garey was in the back—and by the time we got to the tractor’s location, I had had just about enough.  I opened the door, stepped out of the truck and yelled, “Scout, get out now!”  He obeyed at once, probably because I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when the truck started rolling down the hill on its own, and even Scout is smart enough to realize that a truck with its driver’s side door open and no visible driver is up to no good.  I had inadvertently forgotten to put the truck in park before I climbed out.

Because of that stupid law of physics which states that a truck left in drive, pointed downhill will pick up speed when left unattended—a law that should be stricken from the books!—the truck gained momentum as it continued on its way, with Garey being thrown around like a rag doll as he tried to make his way to the front of the truck through the hoses and cans and buckets and McDonald’s coffee cups.  I stood at the top of the hill chanting the fool’s prayer, which goes something like, “Please, God!  Please God!  Please God!,” trying to telepathically direct the truck away from the approaching line of trees.

God answered my fool’s prayer, the truck hit a ditch, which slowed its momentum, and stopped it before it hit the tree line.  Garey was alright, but pretty shaken, and Scout was nowhere in sight, probably hiding in embarrassment from the other dogs he had previously taunted.  I was too drained from the adrenalin rush to care if Garey was angry over the ordeal, but to his credit, he took it in stride, just happy that the truck had missed the trees.

I made a mental note to exclude pickup truck driver when filling out the next job application for personal assistant.