5th Generation Watermelon Adventures

 This summer the torch has been passed. My oldest son is now hauling his own trailer loads of watermelon down the Oregon Gorge. It was a proud moment—although it seems like just summers ago it was my job. As he pulled out onto the road, I took a little trip down memory lane. Hauling watermelons was what led me to hitch-hiking three times as a teenager. All morning I reminisced on the craziest of my trips: the men that climbed onto my trailer driving 65 mph down the freeway outside of the Dalles to steal watermelons. The time we'd put a new transmission in, and they'd not put oil in the transfer case—and my cousin and I drove in 4-low at 10 mph with flashers on down the inter state. My cousin vowed never to go with me on a melon trip again—a vow she kept. There were blown tires, faulty u-joints, bad brakes, kind strangers, helpful truck drivers—I have an entire repertoire of stories from those melon trips. Now the baton has passed to my son. I was in the swather, when I got his phone call (at least now, we have cellphones!) He'd stopped in Biggs to fuel up. As he drove away his pick-up died—right in the middle of the intersection. A guy stopped and offered to tow him backwards into the gas station parking lot. He assured my son that his tow strap would hold as he hooked it up to the loaded trailer. After it snapped like a fresh green bean, my son dug in his tool box and pulled out a 2 inch ratchet strap that they were able to use to get him off the road. Not knowing for sure what was wrong, he called my husband who offered a list of things to try. No luck. He bled the lines...nothing. He disconnected and reconnected the battery... nothing. My son though, wasn't done trying. He called a mechanic friend and picked his brain. Again a list of things to try—and a list of things that didn't work. Charles Kettering, an American inventor and engineer, most famous for his electric motor and Freon air conditioning, once said “keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you least expect it. I never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down!” For an hour and a half, my son kept at it. Then the mechanic called back and gave him another thing to try—just in case the primer wasn't working well. It required finding a couple of pop bottles, and getting $0.50 of diesel, and cutting a funnel out of another bottle to pour diesel into the fuel filter. To his relief, the pick-up started. Unfortunately, he'd missed the unload times, but they left him a key to the forklift. He didn't get back til close to midnight. And the next day his pick-up quit again and had to be towed home. It took three alternators and a lot of time to figure it out. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the sole leather has passed into the fibre of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out.” I'm sure if Emerson would have been on a melon run, he would have measured it in worn out boots, tires, and jumper cables. I like to think that the resilience from my crazy water melon adventures soaked into my “fibre” and that is part of what I have passed down to my son—not just the act of driving—but the tenacity of dealing with any problem on the fly. As I am sure this is just the beginning of the crazy watermelon adventures he will experience as a 5th generation melon grower, wearing out boots and tires.