Getting Stuck

Getting Stuck

When I was fifteen, I got a tractor monumentally stuck. The summer of ’57 we moved from Elko to Deeth, the headquarters for the Marble Ranches. Dad let me work in the hayfields. I got to drive a buckrake. It was called a crazy buck, something rigged by the Grock Brothers, who had a garage down the highway.

The mower left long lines of hay and the crazy buck would comb them into large piles or take the piles to the haystack. It was a great job. The meadow along the Humboldt River was fairly flat. You could lift the rake, put the tractor in third or fourth gear, and race your city slicker cousin Richard to the far end of the field.

I got stuck trying to take a shortcut across a slough. I should have stopped the tractor, gotten off, inspected the swampy swale. Instead, I shifted into third gear, looked back to see if I was beating Richard, rammed the rake into the embankment.

In the process of trying to get me out, two of the hay hands got their tractors stuck. Clay, the foreman, had to stop what he was doing, go back to the ranch, get the stock truck and tow chains. It took all afternoon to undo what it took me ten minutes to do.

You may think I caught hell for that. I didn’t. My dad wasn’t that kind of person. He knew I didn’t really know what I was doing. He probably felt responsible for sending me out there in the first place. The ranch hands didn’t care. They got paid the same whether they were haying or hauling the boss’s daughter out of a ditch.  I’m sure the men had a good chuckle at supper that night.

So—what do I know about getting stuck? I didn’t understand what I was doing. I wasn’t paying attention to the lay of the land or to the piece of equipment I was operating. I was a kid playing at a man’s job. That’s the truth of it.

 But there’s another truth that has to do with being a writer. I got stuck in a rut and caused a fair amount of trouble one July afternoon because I didn’t take myself seriously. I was the boss’ daughter turned loose on a buckrake. “It’ll give her something to do this summer. It’ll be good for her,” they probably said. It wouldn’t have been feminine if I learned too much, if I thought about the consequences of driving a tractor across that ditch. I understand that my action could be interpreted as youthful carelessness—regardless of gender.

But in finding some connection, I’d say it’s this.  I didn’t believe that I should--or could-- learn the trade. It's taken a long time to learn the writer's trade, to call myself a writer.