Fresh out of high school I got a job working for Mr. Carlson. I was happy to get any kind of job at all, this one was setting chokers up on the back side of his big ranch.
Mr. Carlson had a TD-14 International dozer, it was a good machine. Outfitted with a hydraulic blade and a big bull drum on the back, he was harvesting Fir trees up on the back side of his place.
He took one long look at my 6 foot lanky frame and hired me on the spot. It wasn't until much later that I realized he hired me because I was strong and had no idea at all how dangerous the job was.
He got me cheap that way.
"You be careful son." My Dad told me when I mentioned the job.
"Keep your eyes open, and never get below a log, OK?" He patted me on the shoulder.
I was barely 18 years old, close to invulnerable. I mean, what could happen? I set the choker cables, old man Carlson hauled them out of there, that was pretty much it.
By the end of a week I was thinking I was very good at climbing up and down the hillside, and I always tried to get behind a stump or something.
"Stay out of the bite!" He yelled at me maybe two dozen times.
Good thing, too, because Mr. Carlson got one big log hung up, instead of dropping it and letting me reset at a different angle he tried to force it.
The choker broke and dropped the log, it came down the hill at an angle, my way. The log hit the stump and bounced right over my head, I was trying to get all of me under my hard hat at the time.
One big limb did clip me as it went by, caught my shoulder.
I never will forget that, it hurt like hell, still does to this day, some 50 odd years later when it gets cold and damp out.
"You OK?" He yelled down the hill at me.
"Yeah." I stood up, rubbing my shoulder.
When I got to the top of the hill Mr. Carlson took one look at me, then shut down the big dozer.
"Let me see that." He said. I undid my heavy shirt, he looked at the red bruise, it was about three times as big as a Coffee cup and rapidly filling with blood.
"You better take the rest of the day off." He said, and sent me home. There was no such thing as workmen's compensation back then.
Not for a job like mine, paid in all cash at $1.00 per hour.
Going home wasn't good, it was 19 miles down the bay road to our place, I had no car. We didn't yet have a phone, there had been some talk about putting in lines but that meant a mile of telephone poles. In fact, we didn't even get electricity until I was 14.
My Mom dropped me off at 7 in the morning and picked my up at around 6 each day, and it was not even noon yet.
So it was sit on my butt and wait, or walk all 19 miles.
"I will drive you home." Mr. Carlson said, picking right up on my expression.
We went over to his barn, he climbed into a 1950 Chevy business coupe. For any of you that don't know what that is, it is a shorty cab car with no back seat, just a place to put stuff. Chevy built that for travelling salesmen, there were quite a few of those back in the early sixties.
The car was pale green, I liked it. My Dog Boo would fit right in there, he was part bulldog and part...well...he was a Dog.
I happened to mention the Mr. Carlson that I really liked this car.
Anyway, by the time we got to my place Mr. Carlson was talking about maybe selling me the machine. 14 year old cars were considered pretty much done for back in those days, so they weren't worth very much.
I ended up buying it for $95.00, a shade over two week's pay. Mr. Carlson did take out taxes from my pay, of course he never paid any of it in to the government as I found out later.
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Being young, my shoulder healed up all it was going to in just a few days and I went back to work.
Mr. Carlson did tell me the old Chevy had highway gears in it, so to get it going took a tricky bit of getting the engine speed just right and the clutch tugging, then release it all the way and it sort of chugged a little before it got to moving.
That let it go over 60 MPH in 2nd gear, of course the steering wheel began to wobble so bad at that speed that it scared me.
It didn't take me very long to figure out that if I sped the old 216.5 cubic inch engine up pretty good and sort of popped the clutch, the rear tire would squeal for a second or two, that was fun.
If I was in gravel it would really spin the right rear tire.
About a week later we got done fairly late, it was almost dark because we had one tree that was very big. So big we left 30 feet of the butt cut there in the canyon, now way in hell would that fit on the truck anyway.
The guy Mr. Carlson had falling trees was named George, he was a huge man and he had a saw with a bar on it 8 feet long. Even with the saw being that big, he had to cut it from two sides, the use big wedges and a sledgehammer to get it down.
That tree measured 11 feet across and the truck would only hold 8 footers.
"Mill can't saw that, truck can't haul it, guess I will just cut off pieces for firewood." Mr. Carlson told me. He did, too. He carried a ladder down there and cut the huge log across the top with a 24" saw, then used wedges to lift chunks out of it.
So we were done, I climbed up out of the canyon and headed home. There was a tiny little store a couple of miles down the road, I stopped and got myself a soda and a candy bar, one of those big nut logs over caramel that were a full meal by themselves if you ate a whole one.
Off I went towards home, just as I put the column shift lever into second gear it felt funny. I pulled it out and put it back in, the engine sped up but the car was coming to a stop.
I got the machine off the road, it smelled funny too like something was burning.
Nothing left to do but walk, I knew the clutch was probably burned up but I had no idea how to fix that.
I also knew it was still about 16 miles to our house and fat chance of getting a ride. There might be maybe one or two cars an hour on the road during the day, usually none at all at night.
So off I went eating my candy bar and drinking my soda, nothing else to do. I did have my coat, thank God. I pulled it snug around me, the breeze off the ocean a half dozen miles away was downright cold.
About a mile on down the road I looked back and saw headlights coming. I stuck out my thumb, maybe I would get lucky.
A big old Pontiac station wagon went by, then it slowed and stopped. Those were very big and fancy cars, not many folks around could ever afford one of them. He pulled off in a wide spot, rolled down the window.
"Need a ride?" The man driving asked me as I walked up. He looked to be maybe 40 or so, receding hair line, glasses.
