Put Some Ice on That
Put some ice on that
We started out delivering plants in a 71 Ford Econoline van with a 300 cubic inch straight six. The van had enough rust so that the dividing line between outside the van and inside the van was more a state of mind than actual steel. You had to drive slow on the gravel, because people complained about gravel dust on the plants. Once you hit the blacktop, you could move right along, because the vehicle weighed less than a self respecting motorcycle. There was nothing but an engine, a transmission, and some remains of oxidation. Julie painted a geranium on the side, and we were in business.
Traded it for a fifteen passenger van with an overheating problem. Fought it for a couple of years, and finally replaced enough parts that it didn’t overheat. Until somebody stole it late one Saturday night and got it stuck and rocked it back and forth enough that it caught fire. The sheriff called me and told me where it was. I arrived at about the same time as the fire department and my brother, who was driving by and saw the flames. He walked up, looked at the van, and said: “huh. Still overheating, I guess.”
We’ve had pickups and stock racks covered with plywood, pickups and livestock trailers, a tractor and trailer, and we’ve finally settled on rental trucks the last few years. They’ve all had one thing in common. Think of them as large magnets, attractive to other vehicles on the road. Vehicles driven by drivers who are underinsured. The latest wreck occurred a year ago last May, when some guy swerved across the road and ran into my left front, breaking the tie rod immediately, along with enough other damage that the insurance company totaled the brand new truck. Let me tell you, when you have no tie rods, you are just along for the ride. Mine ended in the ditch a few hundred yards down the road. Luckily, there was a high bank and the truck didn’t overturn. Fellow’s insurance was only about 75k short of covering the damage.
Anyway, both me and the other driver walked away from the wreck, although he had rather extensive injuries, and I broke my hand. The emergency room doc put on a temporary splint, as it was a Saturday morning, and I finally got in to see the local doctor on Monday. He had looked at the x-rays, and had come to a conclusion that he didn’t share with me. In fact, the first I knew there was a problem was when he grabbed my hand with both of his, like you might grab a piece of kindling you were trying to break, and reset the bone with one quick twist. I said something I can’t repeat, and he said: “I usually don’t tell people what I’m going to do. Works better that way.”
We haven’t had any wrecks since then, although it won’t surprise me if one of our delivery vehicles attracts another Progressive customer at any time, but that broken hand was the first in a series of injuries to my right hand, so many that people are starting to notice.
A few weeks after I got the cast off, I shut my right hand in a door, losing four fingernails in the process. A few weeks later, my knife slipped, and it only took three stitches to close up the cut. A month or so after that, I fell off the ladder on the end of a greenhouse and sliced the hand again. Luckily, this scar has covered up the earlier scar.
Last week, I managed to smash another finger on my right hand. I got an ice pack out of the freezer and worked for a while one handed, which is getting to be a habit, and finally tossed the ice pack aside, forgetting about it.
Granddaughter Abbie is 14, a high school freshman, and truly a sweet and caring girl. I had forgotten the ice pack, but she hadn’t. As I left work, I saw her putting it in the freezer. I thanked her. She said: “Well, I thought you might need it again tomorrow!”