BACKING UP A VEHICLE

         BACKING UP A VEHICLE  

Jean, out helping feed, driving the pickup

           Is it a gender thing or not? I cannot back up a car let alone a pickup, truck, or tractor, worth a darn. I’m told to turn left, I turn right, I’m told to go straight, I go crooked, I do stop when I’m told, but that’s about it. I can’t take instructions from looking in the rearview or side mirrors. When they signal me through those means, I always turn opposite from what I’m supposed to. I can’t even follow instructions if someone is standing in front of the vehicle and trying to direct me. The gestures they use don’t mean a thing to me. And I hear about my lack of ability to back up in not too pleasant of language.

            I’ve watched my men folk back up expertly from the time I was a teenager. I remember my brother’s backing up the truck loaded with sacks of potatoes into the cellar. They communicated with whistles. Out in the field, my Dad always communicated with whistling, so they picked it up from him. I don’t know what the signals were because I can’t whistle loud, but they knew, and they could back-up into the big black hole of a cellar without hitting any of the poles or the doors. I would probably have a problem driving forward and getting in straight!

            The other day I was backing out of the garage and forgot to open the garage door. The car was just creeping and I heard the noise just as the back of the car gently scraped the garage door, so there wasn’t any damage to either door or car, but it is another example of not being able to back up.

            Last summer when I was backing the car out of the garage, I was visiting with Jon, our son, while doing so. I noticed some men working in the yard waving their arms wildly just as Jon said “You’re going to hit it!” I threw on the brakes just as I hit a car parked behind me. The car wasn’t hurt, just a scratch because I wasn’t going that fast, but the young man who owned it started parking at a different spot.

            I watch Boyd back up to a trailer and he can come close to perfect the first try. I have been on the end guiding him the direction he should go. I’m not sure I’m worth having at that end of the back-up process either, but he hasn’t complained about that. However, he will often get out of the pickup to see where he is at while I am there guiding him. Kind of lets you know that I’m somewhat lacking in ability to not only back up but to give instructions.

            Boyd can back across the yard without a mishap. I can’t. My car, for some reason, doesn’t obey my commands when backing up and will go the wrong direction. Maybe if I could get a “voice command” car where I could say: “I want to back up straight toward that gate,” the car would follow my command. And it wouldn’t say “which gate?” or “why do you want to go that way when it would be simpler to go another way?”

            I can’t park the car in a horizontal parking place either. Probably because it entails backing up again. I think I’m turning the wheels the way they should go and I end up out in the middle of the street. I’ve found it’s easier to walk five or six blocks after finding an easy parking spot than trying to park horizontally.

            At the age I am, I don’t think I will ever learn how to back up. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I can’t do it and tell the guys to do it themselves rather than to put me through the turmoil of trying something impossible.