What was Ford thinking?

[Bert Kemp]

We had some real adventures going to get Christmas trees. My best friend always came over because most of his family land was open pastures. Around where I grew up, everyone used, and us old-timers still use Red Cedars, because that's the only type of tree growing here naturally that looks like a Christmas tree.

One year when we were probably 13, and 14, we drove a farm truck back in the woods to find a couple of trees. The truck we were sent on was a 1949 International one ton, with a short flat bed. It didn't take us long to find a couple of trees that year, and quickly had them loaded up. In backing the truck back into the woods to turn it around, on the narrow logging path, I put the rear end right on top of a stump, and both sets of rear wheels would only spin. We walked the mile, or so back home, and went back with a tractor to pull the truck off the stump.

The next year, the two of us went to do the same thing. This was an unusually cold day, and the ground was hard frozen. It took us several hours to find a couple of nice trees, and drug them back to the truck. By then, the day had warmed up, and so had the ground. The International, that we had left sitting on top of the ground, was now sunk up to the rear axle.

This was a place farther from home, and not wanting to walk all the way back home to get a tractor again, we knew of a family, with a bunch of strong boys, that lived maybe a quarter mile through the woods. We went to their house, and they came back with us. We cut a couple of Pine poles, and lifted one back corner of the truck at the time, putting a pole between the dual wheels on that side. Then repeated on the other side. We didn't slow down as we sped away, and all just waved to each other as we headed back out, slinging large quantities of mud in the process.

o what happened the next year ?
S

[John K Jordan]

We had some real adventures ... The International, that we had left sitting on top of the ground, was now sunk up to the rear axle.

Hey, I had the same kind of fun 'bout 30 years ago, but not at Christmas and the reason was not the temperature. Riding with a friend somewhere on the 80,000 acre Catoosa wildlife management area he decided to power through a remote mud hole instead of going around, ignoring my "Noooo!". The 4wd truck was sunk to the frame from front to back, miles from the gravel road.

Fortunately, I'm a topo map nut and had been tracking our path. We were less than a mile down the mountain from a handful of houses so we hiked up and knocked on some doors. Woke one guy up, he climbed through the window of a buddy's house to steal his truck keys and bushwhacked down the hill and pulled us out. Moral of the story: always drive around mud holes without fresh tracks on both ends.