The Old Farm Truck

When I lived out in Southern California on a horse ranch my washing machine was out back in a small shed like structure. I don't think clothes dryers were invented yet because the landlord had bought us a new ringer washer and put up some nice clotheslines. Each tenant house had its own washing machine and we thought we were something.

I worked for the owner of the ranch, so we lived rent free. I went down the road and picked up the mail and delivered it to each ranch house, I read the gas meters, electric meters and made sure that we didn't run out of water. I had to watch the gauge on the water tower and when it was getting low I had to go out into a field and turn on the pumps to fill it up. Sometimes I would forget about the pumps being on until I would hear or see the water tower overflowing, with water running over the sides. There were also butane tanks that I had to read and calculate how much each tenant used and include that in the rent bill that I was also responsible for collecting on the first day of each month.
I also fed and watered the horses twice a day. The owner kept me pretty busy and when the ranch was sold the new owner even paid me a monthly wage in addition to us living free rent. Those were the days.

I was 16 years old and I also had use of the ranch's old farm truck...what more could a girl ask for. One day a girlfriend and I decided to take the truck to town, and go to the beach while our husbands were at the base at Camp Pendleton. We put on our bathing suits, grabbed our towels and off we went. The beach was just about 5 miles away so we left our clothes at home.
All was fine until on the way back I had to stop at a red light, on a hill, so that the truck was pointing forward up the hill. When the light changed to green I changed gears and tried to balance my release of the clutch with the gas but I wasn't any good at it and would roll backwards and kill the engine. I attempted to move forward for several times, but only managed to go a little farther backwards each time, when finally the police officer who was behind us, stepped out of his cruiser and walked over to the drivers side window and asked me if I needed help. He didn't even bother to wait for my answer but just told me to move over as he climbed into the truck and proceeded to drive it across the intersection to a flat area where he got out and told us to be careful going home. He was very nice about the whole thing and I sure did appreciate his help. I think I would have been there until this day if that nice police officer hadn't come to our rescue.

Boy, did I ever get in trouble with my husband when I told him what had happened to us that afternoon. He scolded me and told me that the truck wasn't meant to be taken off the ranch because it didn't have any tags on it.
NOPE! I went and looked for myself and it sure didn't.
There were no license plates anywhere on that old worn out farm truck.

When I think about it today, I remember that the nice police officer didn't even ask to see my drivers license either. I didn't have it with me anyway....remember?
I left everything at home and we only took towels with us.

That was my first brush with the law. ; )