Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

STUCK IN THE MUD, EPISODE I

So...G-Had got stuck in the mud (check out his story - you may have to scroll down a bit). A pretty good story, complete with beautiful artwork. But...clearly, he is an amateur when it comes to getting stuck in the mud....

My two closest pals, Scott (‘Tiska) and Pete, and I, all owned pansy little 2-wheel drive trucks - me a 1984 4-cylinder Ford Ranger (I miss that thing almost as much as my Cougar - I really need to do a tribute to both someday, on this blog, but especially the Cougar, given the way it committed suicide immediately after I got rid of it), Scott had (heck, still has) a busted up rusted up S-10. He's always going on about how tough it is, and about how it is going to last forever, but since he's pretty much replaced everything on it by now, it's not like it's really the same truck. The closest that’s left to original equipment on that thing is probably the paperclip he jammed in the stereo to make it work when he first bought the truck. Pete also had a beat-up S-10. Between the 3 of us, we probably got stuck at least 2 dozen times when we were in high school. If that's an exaggeration, it's not by much.

My truck looked like this, except dark blue and silver:



I’m not sure which is my favorite stuck in the mud story. Here is one….

So….’Tiska and I were going to go fishing at this pond that my dad and I used to go to. We hadn’t been for about 5 years. I’m frankly surprised that I could find it again, since I was probably about 13 the last time I had been there, so obviously hadn’t driven, and we’d only been there like 2 or 3 times. But I can usually get to a place if I’ve been there even once. On the way out, it was a beautiful day. I can’t remember exactly what the weather was like, except that it seemed like we would be in for some good fishing. The last 3 or 4 miles to the pond are all dirt roads, but it was dry, and didn’t seem like it planned on raining or anything. We were in my truck.

We got within a mile of the pond, and were just about to go over the last hill before we got to the place where you pull in to drive to the pond (it’s one of those that’s set back in the middle of a section), when it began to rain. A lot. We tried going forward for awhile, but soon bogged down (that truck would get bogged down in a pile of dog poo). This must have been like our senior year, because ‘Tiska was all huge and buff by then. For some silly reason, we thought maybe he could just push us out of our predicament.

So ‘Tiska hops out of the truck (getting soaked in the rain) and proceeds to push the truck along. That thing was so light that if I got the back tires spinning, he could just push it all over the road. Seriously, it was that light – me and Tyson Oden picked up the back end one time, and neither one of us was what you might call World’s Strongest Man material. In a previous stuck in the mud encounter, we had worked out that I was better at driving a tire-spinning 2-wheel drive truck in the mud, while ‘Tiska was the better pusher. It was quite comical. We would get a ways down the road, with ‘Tiska pushing behind, and then we would suddenly lurch toward one shoulder (a fair-sized ditch that we would NEVER have gotten out of). So then ‘Tiska would come slipping and sliding around to the ditch we were heading toward, and would start shoving mightily on the front of the truck until we got somewhat centered on the road. So we proceeded like this awhile.

Eventually, we decided that:

1) it was going to take us all day to get to the end of that mile of road

and more importantly

2) having never been past the turnoff for the pond, I had NO idea what would be at the next intersection – if there was one.

So we abandoned the truck, and set out on foot. Being veterans at getting stuck in the mud on country roads, we knew that Step 1 was to find a farmer who could haul us out with his tractor – he wouldn’t be doing anything useful anyway, what with the rain..

I forget the path we took, except that it was something like this…..Walk 2 miles east on a bendy twisty road, and find NOTHING, other than an abandoned farmhouse. Return to area where truck was. Walk 2 miles west, find NOTHING, other than an abandoned farmhouse. Walk 2 miles north, find NOTHING, other than an abandoned farmhouse. This was in southern Pawnee County, if I remember right – that area is DESOLATE. I think you could pick any old abandoned farmhouse, move in, and nobody would notice for years.

We happened across an old falling-down barn at one point. There were no houses anywhere in sight. So we had an idea to pull off some old boards from the barn, and use those as traction. I can’t remember now, whether we suddenly had a lucid moment and thought, “Yeah right,” and abandoned that idea, or whether we actually tried it. At any rate, that idea never panned out.

At some point, 2 things happened:

1) The rain stopped

and

2) I hit upon the brilliant (it seemed to me) idea of following the railroad tracks we had stumbled across on our previous southward foray. I knew this would take us to a town fairly quickly.

We did this. I tried to get ‘Tiska to run, but by then his heels were bloody, because he either wasn’t wearing socks, or they had slipped down, or something. (There’s some amount of humor in me chiding ‘Tiska for not running, since he was in track and stuff and was actually a decent runner, whereas, according to my dad, I was so slow running the bases in baseball that you had to use those earthquake-detecting laser devices to see if I was moving at all). So we went plunking down the railroad tracks like a couple of hobos. I’m sure we didn’t walk as long as it seemed like along those tracks – probably it just seemed like a lot because of all our previous tramping.

Finally, we spotted a town (I don’t know which one - I can never keep those Pawnee County towns straight). So we kept plunking along – the railroad ties being too close together to take one per stride, comfortably, and too far apart to take 2 at a time. Before we got to a town, we saw a little farm house. Eureka! Somewhat sheepishly, and soaking wet, and probably muddy up to the knees, with ‘Tiska probably leaving a blood-trail from his heels, we went up and rang the doorbell. The farmer answered the door quite awhile after we rang – he seemed to have been napping. We explained our situation. Just about anyone else in the world would have laughed at us and told us to get our muddy asses off their porch, but Midwestern farmers are obliged to help out, no matter what the circumstances – it’s something genetic. So he got his irrigation boots on, and waddled out to his shed. BUT, he had to spend about 20 minutes unhooking some kind of implement from his tractor first, and then locate a log chain. Once he did, we were soon off – with ‘Tiska and I sitting on the tractor’s wheel wells beside this rotund, flannel-shirted saint.

I’m kind of surprised we could even lead him back to our truck, since we had come to his house via railroad, but we did it. I should say I did it – if it were up to ‘Tiska to find it, we would probably still be jouncing along on that tractor. 2 things 'Tiska can't do: 1) row a boat and 2) navigate. I don’t know how far his house was from the truck, but it seemed like the longest ride EVER. Once we turned onto the dirt (mud) roads, chunks of mud the size of cats started flying up off the tires and hitting ‘Tiska and I in the back of the head and in the spine. At least the farmer, chuckling, slowed down a little, so the mud chunks that were hitting us were just muskrat-sized. It’s impossible to state what a long ride that was.

We finally made it to the truck – the farmer seemed impressed by how far we had walked. He hooked up the truck to his tractor, and started pulling it out. I was trying to drive it in reverse while he pulled, but it was sliding all over the road, so he told me just to put it in neutral and he would pull me. This turned out to be worse. Frustrated, the farmer said, “It’s probably dry enough you can just drive out now.” So...we unhooked the truck, turned it around, and drove out. When we got back to gravel, we thanked the farmer, and tried to pay him. He refused payment, saying we had earned it, after all that walking. In actuality, I think that he would have felt bad taking money from a couple of kids who were obviously so stupid. He drove off into the sunset, and me and ‘Tiska sat there feeling like the dumbest guys in all of the world.

If we had just walked the rest of the ½ mile to the fishing hole, fished the whole day, and then walked back to the truck, it would have been dry enough to drive right out. Instead, we spent the whole day slogging along on mud roads and railroad tracks.

I learned some valuable lessons that day. I’ve forgotten them all by now, but I’m sure there was something…

G-Had: That’s hilarious, that you had a towtruck (or ‘wrecker’ as ‘Tiska calls them) come and pull you out. Next time, just find a farmer – seriously, they don’t mind – I think that’s the kind of stuff they sit around talking and laughing about over coffee at CO-OP every morning. And they will almost never take payment, except the guy that tried to extort ‘Tiska and Pete for like $50 for pulling them ½ mile with his tractor one time.

I wish I could tell the best story ever about getting stuck in the mud, where ‘Tiska and Tiny Nick stole a tractor, but alas, I wasn’t there. Perhaps ‘Tiska will share as a guest blogger…..

-m