[Scott Douglas]

I never liked the idea of breaking down at the side of the road so I did everything in my power to prevent it from happening, even when young and penniless. The only time I've ever left a car at the side of the road was when my '68 BMW 1600 clutch linkage popped apart. This was after driving all day and most of the night before getting to my Grandmother's house on the farm in Ohio. Drove past her house before realizing it was her house and stopped at the T in the road at the bottom of a small hill. Of course that's when the linkage popped apart. I coasted around the corner and down the hill a bit to a wide spot in the road and pulled over. Got out and was looking under the hood to confirm the diagnosis when the local school bus drove by with a pickup truck following closely behind. This was way out in the farm country of Ohio so I didn't think too much about having to leave the car unattended. The kids in the pickup truck turned around and came back, asked if I needed help. I asked if they knew where the Moore farm was. Sure, right up the road I'd just come down. They gave me a lift to the farm and my Grandmother answered the door after a bit of a wait. It was 6AM and they were just getting up. After a great farm breakfast (my Grandmother said I looked like I hadn't been eating well), my step-grandfather helped me tow the car back to the garage behind the house. I was so pissed at the car I didn't look at it for two weeks, during which time I learned how to drive a tractor and move hay bale rolls with it. Put up corn, shovel cow *****, lay concrete and leave it 'as poured' so the cows could get traction going up the hill when it was icy. Eat a full steak meal in less than 20 minutes, and come to appreciate how those Ohio boys got to be so big from working on the farm. I also came to appreciate what it means to go to town and cruise up and down the main drag on a Friday night in small town America.
I fixed the car out in the garage and found out what cold concrete really feels like. It was late November. I will admit to giving the guys a really good laugh when it started to snow while I was moving hay bales. I got back from a run on the tractor and asked what tree was blooming and spreading all it's petals all over the place. I hadn't been in snow for over twenty years at that point in my life and didn't recognize it.