Stuck in Genetics

Stuck in Genetics

As I looked at my son, I was amazed about how much he reminded me of my Dad.  The way he stands, the facial expressions, the pick-up stuck in the snow bank.  I believe that certain things are passed on from generation to generation and getting vehicles stuck is one of them.  Probably in ancient Sweden some long lost relative was explaining to his wife as they stood there looking at an ox cart up to it’s axles in mud, “I could have made it through if I had a little bit more momentum.”

My dad was a great one for momentum.  To get through that soft spot in the half mile driveway to our cabin you just had to have the right momentum.  Too much and you slid off the road.  Not quite enough and you just got farther into the mud hole.  We spent a lot of hours working with shovels, boards, and pushing our 1959 Ford station wagon on those days when we just didn’t get that exact amount of momentum.  He would finally give up and he would send me down the road to get Lundeen and his tractor to pull us out.

Dad introduced me to getting stuck in snow, mud, sand, and high centered.  He taught me how to get unstuck too.  Jacking up the stuck vehicle and putting whatever is available under the wheels with no traction is the best way.  Branches, rocks, floor mats, boards (without nails, we learned that the hard way) all work pretty well until you give up and go get Lundeen and his tractor.

The most memorable stuck was when one evening he backed into a sand ditch trying to turn around on an isolated country road.  The sand was like sugar and there was no bottom to it.  We worked with some branches and floor mats, but we just kept sinking deeper.  We finally gave up and started walking to the nearest house.  The closest place was an isolated old farm house that was owned by a bachelor who lived alone and nobody knew much about.  As we walked up the quiet driveway, we couldn’t see any lights in the house and there wasn’t a yard light.  That had to be one of the scariest walks I have ever done.  We kept waiting for some dogs to attack us, or a shotgun toting hillbilly to appear, but everything was dead silent.  There weren’t any cars around.  We banged on the front and back doors with no response.  We dug around in his sheds until we found a shovel and some boards that we used to eventually free the old Ford from the sand.  While we were working a car came by (the first one we had seen in four hours).  It didn’t stop to see if we needed any help and we saw it turn into the driveway that led to the old farm about a quarter mile down the road.  We didn’t bother to return the borrowed tools until the next day.  Funny thing was no one was home then either and we put everything back where we found it and left.

Steve Jr. has carried on the tradition of finding just how far a vehicle can go.  Here in the Idaho desert, there are many opportunities to find ways to lose traction.  We bought Steve a 1966 International Scout and a 1969 Scout for extra parts, hoping he would learn some driving and mechanical skills.  Many times he and his friends would come walking back home.  The Scout was stuck, broke, or out of gas.  One time we were going back out to rescue it and we couldn’t find it!  They weren’t sure where they had left it.  We went to the highest hill around and after searching the horizon with binoculars we finally spotted the yellow of the hood in the sun.

One time his friends came back from a camping trip to the mountains to report that the Scout was mired in mud so bad that even with a jeep and lots of tow rope they couldn’t move it.  My GMC Jimmy with a winch was off to the rescue.  It took a couple of hours and there were a bunch of muddy teenagers before we were able to free it.  If you combine four wheel drive with momentum, you can get really stuck.

The Jimmy had a lift kit and 36” tires.  With a little bit of skill matched with the genetic tendencies towards getting stuck, and some momentum you could put it in places that defied nature.  Of course Mother Nature doesn’t like to be defied.  A certain teenage boy, while showing off to his friends, managed to stick the Jimmy in the Mountain Home Reservoir in mud and water that engulfed those 36” tires.  It took two full sized trucks, a winch, and some ingenuity to “unstick” it. 

I, of course, also have those genetic tendencies.  One day I was trying to get to the “greener pastures” of elk hunting.  There was a trail that maybe at one time had been a road.  It was pretty well washed out, narrow, and clinging to the edge of a cliff.  Going downhill it is fairly hard to get stuck.  I was stopping and getting out of the truck every hundred yards or so to scout out the next downhill.  I was more worried about falling off of the cliff than getting stuck.  After going through some bad spots while successfully fighting off the law of gravity, I started getting a little bit more confident.  The next bad spot didn’t look too bad so I didn’t get out and scout it.  It was only about a quarter of a mile down to the next flat area and even though the washout was right in the middle of the road, I easily straddled the two foot deep ruts down to the safety of the next corner.  Right in the middle of the steep hill the washout turned and ran off the cliff.  This made the rest of the hill nice and easy.  I was a little concerned about negotiating that washout on the way back up.  I thought I might have to do some winching to make it past the bad spot so I planned to quit hunting early enough to leave me some daylight to get back up the hill. 

I made it back to the truck around 4:00 which gave me about an hour and a half of daylight to get back up the hill.  Momentum is the key to everything.  Coming downhill I had the momentum of gravity to help me through the spot where the washout went over the cliff.  Going up hill was much more challenging.  I had to get through the bad spot and still straddle the washout in the middle of the road.  I hit it as fast as was reasonable.  I got through the bad spot thanks to momentum but I slipped into the washout.  I was going to back up and get a run at it again.  As I put the truck in reverse and let the clutch out, the back end gave a jump to the right.  It wanted to follow the washout over the cliff!  I bailed out of the truck.  Luckily it didn’t go over the cliff.  It was balancing on the right front wheel and the left rear wheel.  The other two wheels were off the ground.  The right rear wheel was actually hanging out over the cliff.  I gingerly reached into the cab and grabbed the winch control.  After letting out the winch cable and attaching it to a nearby tree I was able to secure the truck enough so it wouldn’t fall.  The next few hours were spent using a high lift jack, a variety of ropes and cables to jack, winch, find another anchor point, jack, winch, etc.  Remember I only had an hour and a half of daylight left so I ended up working in the dark.  After I got to the top of that hill I still had to negotiate the rest of the “road” in the dark.  When I was going around the sharp corners, my headlights were shining out into space and I could only judge where the road was by the glare on the side of the mountain out of the passenger’s window.

(To be continued)

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Germany 1971

Germany 1971

The ancient German farmer came out from a blind corner right in front of us.  I slammed on the brakes and pulled left, but I couldn’t avoid him.  He was driving a walk behind hay mower that was pulling a small trailer.  He was straddling the trailer tow bar.  Impact was my VW’s right front wheel to his mower blade.  The impact sent him flying.

Pregnant Hedda was ok, as were my Mom and Dad and two year old Lisa.  The old man miraculously got up.  His hay mower didn’t look the worse for wear, but the right front wheel of my VW was torn off.  The poor old farmer said he was not hurt.  He was telling the neighbors that he panicked and froze at the controls.

This incident happened just as we were leaving the Black Forest city of Baden-Baden.  Because there was an American involved the local police called the State Police and they arrived in a motor home.  They interviewed us separately and agreed that the skid marks of my little VW matched up with my story.  They said it was the farmer’s fault and I collected the insurance information.  We had the car towed to a shop and made arrangements to rent a car and continue on our vacation.  My Mom and Dad had another adventure to add to there European trip log.

We made our way back to Kaiserslautern where we lived.  After sending the tourists home, I still had a few days of vacation left so we got the older VW out of the storage lot, transferred insurance and registration and headed for Holland.

We had just bought the other car expressly for the European tour with my folks.  This VW was in the storage lot because it was not meant to be driven far.   I filled it with oil and packed a few spare quarts to get us through the 200 mile drive to Hedda’s house.  At the first hill we almost came to a stop.  It was like the little engine, “I think I can.  I think I can.”

We made it to the top and pulled over to the side.  The old VW’s were air cooled and don’t have a temperature gauge, but I knew it was overheating.  I topped off the oil and used the oil can and some bungee cord to prop the hood open hoping this would allow some more air to cool the air cooled engine.

We decided to keep to the small roads and stay away from the autobahn.  The six hour trip took us about ten hours and I was all out of oil by the time we got to Hedda’s parents house.  We also “lost” first and reverse gears in the transmission.  The little VW did its job and got us to Holland.  I figured I could just run it over to the junk yard and they might even give me some beer money for it.  No such luck.  Because it had not been properly imported to Holland they couldn’t even take it off my hands for free without paying import taxes.  Pa Hardeman said just leave it with him.  He would take off anything usable and bury what was left in the back yard.  Years later when a construction crew built new houses there, I bet they were surprised to find a VW graveyard.

Hedda and Lisa stayed in Holland and I took the train home.  I was scheduled to go TDY (temporary duty) to Spain for four weeks.  I found a lawyer, gave him power of attorney for the car that was wrecked and all the information about the farmer and his insurance and left for Madrid.

As things sometime happen in the military, four weeks turned into six weeks.  When I got back to Germany I caught a taxi to the lawyer’s office and got there just before they closed.  He had a check for me that covered the loss of the car, the cost of the rental car, and his fees.  I signed the check and he cashed it for me.  I walked over to the German version of Hertz, rented a car and headed for Holland.

That is how three weeks later we were carless.  I was able to catch a ride to and from work, and we had made arrangements with the landlady who lived downstairs to bring us to the hospital and watch Lisa when it was time for the baby. 

Hedda said “Steve, I think it is time.”

I went downstairs while she packed a bag.  The landlady’s mother answered the door and said she was babysitting and no one else was home.  This family was always home!  I went back upstairs, gathered what little cash we had, walked to the Gast Haus to call a taxi, got the landlady’s mother to watch Lisa, and off we went to the hospital.

When Lisa was born, I was right there helping.  Giving advice, holding a hand, amazed at the miracle of birth.  In the American Army hospital I wasn’t allowed in the delivery room I was regulated to the father’s waiting room like a bad TV sit com.  Sometime in the middle of the night, Steve Jr. was born.  Mother and baby were fine.  Now when we left home, I had only found enough money for the taxi ride to the hospital.  I had to walk/hitchhike the six miles back home at three o’clock in the morning.

When I look back on those times I am amazed at how we ever survived.  Driving a junk car to Holland with a two year old and a pregnant wife.  At home with an overdue pregnant wife and no cash on hand in case of an emergency.

What were we thinking!

Looking back, I guess I wouldn’t change a thing.

Hedda's Tante Gerrie & The good VW

Steve Jr. & Oma Hardeman

Steve Jr.

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August 1969 - Pregnancy

The first thing I learned about an eight month pregnant wife is not to take her to the movie “Rosemary’s Baby”.  To those who don’t know that was a Mia Farrow movie about a woman who gets pregnant by the devil.  We had taken the bus to base to see the movie, settled down with our popcorn and after the first hour of terror, she calmly told me that her water broke.

Now as a mature 20 year old I had some experience with water breaking.  When I was living with my sister Janet and going to college, she woke me up one morning after Roger and the girls had gone off to work and school and informed me that her water broke and we had to do something.  Now the reason that I was in bed and not attending classes was because my car was out of gas and I was out of money.

We were living in an old farm house in northern Minnesota.  The driveway was about ¼ mile long and the nearest neighbor was about one mile away.  The second nearest neighbor was another mile farther.  We had electricity, but no phone.  We did have a really nice pump house where we got our water and medium nice outhouse.  If you don’t know what an outhouse is ask your parents.

I quickly got up, saddled the horse and headed to the nearest neighbor.  There was nobody home.  I then went to the next neighbor.  They weren’t home either.  There must be a sale on farm equipment or beer at the co-op.  I took a short cut back through the woods and across the river.  I’m not making any of this up.  Janet was nice and calm, which was good.  I figured if she wasn’t worried everything must be OK.  I gathered up a gas can and a hose and went to various junk cars and tractors that we kept around for just such an emergency, and siphoned out a couple of gallons of gas.  I put the gas into my 1955 Ford.  This was in 1966 so the Ford was only 11 years old.  It wasn’t rusted out too bad and it ran pretty good.  We loaded up an overnight bag and a calm mother-to-be and headed out.

Now the Ford ran pretty good, but there was a slight problem with the transmission.  It wouldn’t climb a hill in low gear.  There was a couple of big hills right after a “T” in the road.  When I was by myself, I would hit the turn about 25 miles an hour so I could keep up the momentum to climb the hill.  Now a 90 degree turn on a dirt road at 25 mph was an adventure that I thought I should spare sister under these circumstances, so I turned around at the bottom of the hill and backed up it.  I think we had to back up a couple of more hills on the way.

We stopped at a friend’s house.  They weren’t home.  Where was everybody??  We knew where they hid the key and went inside and called the doctor.  He said you better get in to the hospital in Virginia right away.  Now after all of these years my memory is not too clear, but I think I dropped her off at the emergency entrance and by the time I parked the car, Scott Peterson was testing out his lungs.

Luckily I didn’t have to saddle up a horse that evening in Holland.  We just walked across the street to the base clinic.  After a couple of hours of sitting around in the clinic and a couple of phone calls to the doctor, they decided that nothing was happening and brought us home.  The next day we went and saw her doctor and he explained a lot of intimate details about the inside of a woman and something about only a partial break of a protective lining and everything was OK.

Things were fine for the next month and a half and then she again announced that her water broke.  This time it was for real.  We sat around watching TV and waiting.  At least Hedda was watching TV, I was watching Hedda.

“Do you feel anything?”

“No”

 “Do you feel anything?”

“No”

This went on for a few hours and then we went to bed.

“Do you feel anything?”

“No”

“Do you feel anything?”

“Well, just a little pain in my belly.”

“What else are you waiting for?”

We called the doctor.  He came to the house and checked her out and said let’s head for the hospital.  Now Hedda and all of her siblings had been delivered by this doctor in this house.  We were going to the hospital because of an insecure twenty year old – wait it’s after midnight – an insecure twenty-one year old American.  I had just realized that it was my birthday.

I made Hedda ride in the doctor’s car and I followed.  We got to the birthing room and the doctor checked her out again and then asked the nurse if she would set some tea.  TEA!! There was a baby coming!  Somebody do something!!!  So we drank some tea and when Elizabeth Jane was ready about an hour later I had the best birthday present ever!

Hedda

Oma Hardeman & Lisa (Elizabeth)

Opa Hardeman & Lisa (Elizabeth)