Flogging the old truck
This thread brings back some great memories. I learned to drive while getting wood. Living in northern Maine, my father and I would go out on the paper company land near our camp to cut firewood. He was the chainsaw man and I was the loader/truck driver/unloader. We had a 2WD 6 cylinder F150 that we used like a skidder, as my father would cut down trees just off the logging road, then we would use the truck to twitch the logs into the road with a rope. I remember those logs getting hung up and telling my father that the temperature gauge was on "H". He told me to put it to her. When I had a truckload, I would drive the 6 miles back to camp by myself while my father stayed in the woods to ready another load. It was so cool. 13 years old driving all by myself, the radio cranked.
On one of the trips back to camp, I was backing the truck around the camp, concentrating on backing up, and the front of the truck turned into the side of the camp. Wasn't expecting that. I thought all I had to do was pay attention to where I was pointed, not to other things that might be going on away from the action.
We would go out in the morning before it got too hot, get a couple pick-up loads, then be done by mid morning. During the rest of the day, I would split a little with the maul until I got hot, then jump in the lake to cool off.
I have so many memories of cutting wood. My father even made an ATV type trailer with car wheels that we pulled with a motorcycle with a draw bar. It couldn't haul that much, but it was such a novel idea. Better than hand carrying.
Another time we had an open winter with no snow. We were out on the frozen lake with the pick-up cutting wood off the shore. On the way back to camp, the truck dropped through the first layer of shell ice, fetching up on the solid ice under that. I'll never forget that feeling of the truck dropping through.
And like alot of things, us younger folks have it easier. Back then we cut down live trees, they got hung up, and the truck took he!! trying to drag the tree down. Now, we have so many logging roads and logging operations, that we just ride the roads and pick up pieces of wood left behind by the loggers. Sometimes I only have to run the saw 5 minutes to get a pick-up load. But its those old times, where the misadventures made the memories.
