Chapter 1: Solving an Age-Old Problem!

I was born in 1952 in a small town called Neodymium in the state of Kansas. My name is Joe Allen, it’s 1966 and I just turned 16 and will be starting my Junior year in High School. I’m 6’1” tall and growing, some years I would grow over 3”, I weigh around 145 pounds, I have a 7” dick, it too is growing, though not as fast. I’m very interested in photography and agriculture. All you need to know is that I grew up two miles out of town on a small farm. Our house was on top of a hill on seven acres, down the hill was fifty acres of prime bottom land that would and did flood sometime. Dad farmed that and another two hundred and eighty acres that belonged to my grandfather on my Dad’s side. Dad also worked at the refinery in town, it was small and old, built in the 20’s. Mom was a homemaker and mother to me, and my two sisters who were fifteen and fourteen.

Being a farm boy, I learned to drive a tractor and the farm truck when I was thirteen. I got a provisional driver’s license when I turned fourteen. At first I could just go from point A to point B on farm errands or to school, but always straight back home. Always with a parent or by myself, no passengers allowed. I guess they only want me to kill my self, if I had an accident, no one else. That all changed when I turned sixteen, that was when I tested for and received my Golden ticket, my unrestricted driver’s license, FREEDOM! I also received for my birthday, my grandfather’s 1950 Plymouth Deluxe four door, with an inline six cylinder, flathead engine, and three on the tree standard transmission. Gas was purchased in bulk for the farm and was dispensed from a 500 gallon tank down below the barn, I didn’t have to pay anything.

Of course, being a small town of around five thousand people, there was not much to do in town. There were two fast food places, Dairy Queen, and Peter Pan, both located on Main Street at opposite ends of town. Main Street was a major highway that ran through town but was generally a north south highway. There were also two sit down restaurants, the Green Lantern, which was old. My mom was in the Green Lantern when she heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor the morning of Sunday December 7, 1941. The other was a brand new Pizza Hut. There were no stop lights. The most favored activity by kids with cars, was to drive the circuit, driving down Main St. to Peter Pan, turn around in their parking lot, down Main to the Dairy Queen and turn around in their parking lot, then back to either 4th Street or all the way down to 8th St. turn north, go past the High School, turn left onto Tank St. at the city pool, go past the tennis courts and turn on 4th St. or do this in reverse occasionally. The idea was to see and be seen, stop and talk to other kids, maybe ride with them or them with you. We also had the Drive-in, occasional school dances, and dances at the Lions Club with local bands like the Night Train. For those of us with a less sober bent, there was a bar in town, the Little Seven or AKA the Five and a Deuce, that would sell beer (3.2% alcohol content) to virtually anyone. I’ve actually seen a kid who looked like he was ten years old come in and order a case of beer. I used to come in and sit at the bar and drink regular or tomato beer and sometimes play Cardinal McPuff with a friend.

As mentioned earlier, I helped with the farming when I turned thirteen, from about ten, I mowed the grass. City kids mow grass too, but they mow a front yard and a backyard. I mowed a front yard and a backyard too, but I also mowed a left side yard and a right side yard. I’m sure I would have had to mow a top yard and a bottom yard if there had been such a thing. The yard(s) I mowed were over six acres total, most of it was on the slope of our hill, the only flat areas were where the house, milk house, and the old chicken coop, which was converted into a shop, were all located at the top. The East side of the property was not level, but was a flat slope that fell away from the house at about 15 degrees. There was one part of the hill, about a quarter of an acre, on the west side, that was too steep to mow. All this mowing was performed with a self propelled two speed mower, except of course when the transmission was broken, then it became a very heavy push mower. My summers were taken up with mowing, I would start on the west side, and work around the property. By the time I finished all the way around the house to the front yard, it was time to start cutting the first section again.

I did have some off time occasionally, then I would take a book up to my treehouse and read. It was quiet and peaceful, the wind would rustle the leaves and it was cooler due to the transpiration of water out of the leaves. I spent many wonderful hours in that treehouse. The summer before I turned 13, my birthday was in late August, I learned to drive our tractor, a 1950 Allis-Chalmers WD40. My first lesson did not go well!

We were disking, our disk was oversized (for the WD) and three point hitch mounted. Disking occurs at one of the fastest speeds used in farming! With my Dad riding on the fender, we took off, I dropped the disk and sped up. Dad said to go a little faster, then he said to go faster still. As we approached the end of the field, Dad gave me several instructions. Reduce the speed, raise the disk, turn the steering wheel, hit the left brake, and I did all of them but one. I didn’t raise the disk, not raising the disk negated the last two instructions, rather than turning, the tractor went straight. Straight into the ditch that was about three feet lower than the field, that was still wet and muddy at the bottom. The tractor was buried, the disk remained in the field raised to the maximum at an angle of about 45 degrees with the front buried in the edge of the ditch. The only good news is that neither one of us were thrown off the tractor and killed! I was humiliated and was told to go to the house, in shame, by a father who was madder than I had ever seen him! He had to walk to the neighbors and borrow his WD to pull ours out of the ditch.