Younger people driving and other things that have changed!!!

The post about the grand parents hauling their 28 year old grandson around got me to thinking about how things seem to have changed.

I was driving around the farm as soon as I could reach the pedals. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was driving on the gravels between farms. I got my "school" permit at 14. Regular license at 16.

Did not get a car until I was married for several years. When we had to go somewhere in a car we used either my mother's car or my grand parents car. The car was always filled with gas after we drove it. If it was full when we got in it I left money for the use of the car on the seat.

My kids learned to drive just like I did. Around the farm as soon as they could reach things. Having a half mile long lane made them want to drive early. They would drive an OLD 1952 Chevy pickup out to met the school bus. This made them want to drive as the truck had a good heater. That sure beat walking out the lane and standing in the cold waiting on the bus.

Driving that old pickup taught them several things:

1) Driving a stick shift

2) Driving a vehicle without power steering.

3) Starting a engine with a manual choke

4) Starting a vehicle with a push pedal starter button on the floor. ( You sure got good at angling your feet to hold the clutch down and the brake. Plus holding the accelerator pedal half way down and hitting the started button all at the same time. While working the choke with your hand) Make fuel injection seem pretty easy. LOL



There where just a few adult people that I know that did not drive. Yes, there where a few older ladies that never drove but most did.

My one Great Uncle drove until they made you get a license. He never would go and take the written test. I suspect he could not read very well and was afraid that he may look foolish while trying to take the test. He was about the only able minded/bodied adult I knew that did not drive.



Then another major difference is how we let the kids be more independent.

My kids, daughter included, where riding their bikes all over the place at 12-13??? I mean miles away. They had friends that where 4-5 miles away on the back roads. Then we did not see anything wrong with that. I would not dream of allowing my grand daughters to do that.

At the county fair we would go as a family. As soon as we where in the main gate the older kids got a few dollars to spend and then we would not se them until lunch time. Heck when they got older and where in 4H they would spend the week at the fair with their livestock. You could sleep in the livestock barns back then. I would not feel "safe" letting any of my grand kids do that today, male or female.

Has it really gotten that unsafe for kids today??? Are we just hearing about it more since communication is so much better??? We all have heard of kids being kidnapped/abused. Is it really happening more or do we just hear about it more??? Also there are a lot more people so is the percentage the same but just happening more because of more people???

As group are we baby boomers enabling more of our kids to be lazy dependent adults??? I will admit that my youngest lived with us, with his wife and two kids, while they finished school. He is out on his own now for 4-5 years.

I don't really have any answers to these questions. I really am saddened that my kids and grand kids are not getting to grow up like I did.

P.S. I was really naïve and innocent compared to today's kids. My wife and I did not know what these kids know even after we where married for years. LOL

I to was driving at 11 or 12. For some reason I do not know, the mail did not go by our house, and we had to drive to town 2 miles to get our mail. At age 14 I was driving to our small town to get the mail and go to the grocery store. As you stated, I would not even consider my grandkids to do that. The best part of early driving was when I took Driver's Ed. in school. Several of the country boys would drive in the same school period. One day we got in the car and the teacher gave pout a big sigh and said, it is sure a relief to get in the car with people that know how to drive. We got a lot of our driving time in by driving the teacher to run errands for him.

So today I'm out at my brothers house and he's got quite a bit more Amish than I do even though I got Amish too, and I'm carefully passing buggies so one don't hang a left into me, and one comes from the opposite direct. Elderly Amish grandfather and grandmother, bunch of small children in the back. I'm thinking to myself, bet them kids aren't screaming like most kids.

Then on the way home I stop at the grocery store to pickup some things. I get to this aisle and some youngish mother is telling her out of control little daughter "...caution, get a grip on yourself..." and I keep going, shaking my head. Next aisle, I encounter them again, and the little girl is hanging on the side of the cart screaming and crying, no tears though. Mother put something in the cart, little is screaming she doesn't want them. Mother says that her little brother will, so now the little girl is screaming that she don't want them in the cart at all. Mother says, "You aren't the boss" and the little girl is still screaming. I see an elderly fella nearby and clearly he's had enough too, so as I'm passing the non-mommy and her out of control daughter, I let out with a loud booming voice that came out of Georgia and could be heard in Canada two aisles over, "HEYYYYYYYY!!!" that makes non-mommy jump out of her skin and little out of control girl shutup and jump into the cart looking at me, as I look at the elderly fella and calmly say, "Hey, its sure been a long time since I've seen you", reached out and shook his hand and gave him a wink, and kept going. Little crying out of control girl didn't make a peep after that. And guess what? She still had no trace of tears when she quit crying.

Maybe I'm getting old.

Mark

YEA good for you. I wish some of them would get back handed!

jd seller , we were raised in parallel worlds ,,, the county fair , bicycle trips, parents not knowing our whereabouts for hours kinda , I guess , I recall my dad, looking for my brother and I who were hired out to put up fence for one neighbor,another neighbor came by needing hay help ,sincefence was nearly done we hired in with him ,,Dad found us there and was sorta sore with Curtis , because our own hay needed hauled,and it was gonna rain , So Curtis helped with our hay , //////at age 15 I regularly would drive dads 69 ford truk thru gravel back roads to town get supplies needed for the farm .10 mile round trip . ///// as 4 or 5 yr old I played in the strawberry shed while my mother crated berries with the strawberry farmers wife ..I remember Jerrys pikup rattling across the field road toward us ,, but Mom said, I DONT SEE a DRIVER???.the Farmers wife said , Oh,DEAR,, Its RIcKY DRIVIN !,,.he was about 8 yrs old,,the truck shuttered to a stop ,Ricky got Out and eagerly said to his mother ,, Mom ,, DADDY Said for me to tell You All we gotta Move to the Other Side of Field as soon as you wrap up here , BUT NOW, I need To Take This And This And That ,and everything on the truk and go back rite away,, I knew I would end up walking across the field so I asked to go along with Ricky ,, No PROBLEM ,,we climbed in,RICKY hit the starter button on the dash, and started the truk in gear , and away we went , I asked him how hard the truck was to drive , because his feet were not able to reach the pedals , ricky Said Its Easy,, alls ya gotta do is pull this T handle thing and it speeds the motor ..anmd when we get where were going turn off the key ,, and if it wont stop when we need to I yank back this big black lever, ( Hand Brake )...ricky drowned in a lake 20 yrs ago .. Their berry farm was a big operation involving over 50 migrant sutherners Families mixed in withal the neighborhood kids pikin and getting the job done , they would end up pikin cherries in Michigan before going home to Ky , ten , Carolinas , and serveral came from Florida we all got along great, Too.. No Fights ever,, they lived along the creek near the farm house ,,, Jerry got a couple guys jobs building I-64 for the summer ,while their parents and siblings went north ...

That's a question I'll bet many ponder, from reading old newspapers and remembering things of the past, there has always been bad people out there, I think its more prevalent today, the population has increased quite a bit and then some. The news today is chock full of some of the worst things a person can imagine, daily it seems, though I know it was just the same 30 years ago, maybe you did not hear it so often or it had the same frequency. Kid I rode the school bus with, best one of the whole family, he got preyed upon, assaulted well in an "unnatural" manner lets say to keep it G rated, and was murdered, left in a ditch, hot early summer, he was badly decomposed when they found his remains, and they never caught the person who did it, the case is still open today. Place where I lived in those days was full of some really odd folks, you had best watch your backside, my mother had to fend off a home invasion at my grandparents farm, using a browning gold trigger 12 ga. shotgun, someone was trying to bash the door in. My father was home on leave and arrived just after, state police showed up too, my father just happened to show up as the guy ducked into the woods, he fired a few shots at him. You can't make this crap up, its unreal at times what you may have to deal with in places you'd never even think you would. I lived there for almost 3 years, rural as heck, in the mountains, party line telephones, have a friend there today, with 2 young girls, told him to pay close attention at all times, it has not changed one bit. I live with the mindset at any given time someone could show up, needless to say, you bug me at night, in the dark, you won't like what happens, I lost a good friend to a killer at point blank range in the head for no good reason, just the money in his pocket which he gave up, killer shot him anyway, its out there and always will be, one has to be prepared not paranoid, just prepared. Well that's kind of my philosophy, never let your guard down.

I know I wanted to drive, and I'd be the first to learn how to run any piece of equipment, tractors, trucks, anything, and did as much as I could, it helped later having a good feel for these kinds of things early. Looking back, I don't know that I was all that ready or educated, but had enough common sense to stay out of trouble, but also never really had any real instruction, that creates an element of danger, ie; running a rotary mower, I knew what it could do, but never gave it any thought, cutting saplings, brush in overgrown fields going back to crops, there was an innocence about it, that could easily have gotten you in serious trouble. I hit a round rock in one field, softball size at the largest, and it went clear up my back side, never hit me, and cleared the hedgerow, easily 40' trees, that and side hills while on a 2010 narrow front, without those experiences, you may not learn to respect things so much. There is no way I'd allow a kid to do any of what I did, without a lot more instruction and hands on working side by side. Same as you said, allowing them to do as many of us did, have freedom to run in the woods, or down the road somewhere, roam at a fair, or any of it, there are way too many predators out there and though they won't get the benefits of such freedom like we did, there has to be a way to make up for that, most kids are bright enough, they do know a lot more at an earlier age, no denying that is true today, its really getting them to listen and absorb what you say, how you do that is an art, and those that do identify with good mentoring, often times are way ahead of the pack. I think my parents liked scare tactics, no diplomacy or discussion/instruction, they were more like cops in a patrol car hiding behind a bill board, screw up, right on your tail, never saw that on the opposite side when doing good or things are ok, normal guidance and all that, never happened, they were always busy, so like so many of us left to our own devices, that somehow made it through some risky times, it does build character without any doubt, but today you have to find another way to get the same thing accomplished. A lot of people find it sad to shield and shelter kids so much, due to the risks out there, knowing how it was way back when.

I was driving the tractor on the farm by the time I was ten or eleven; the truck a couple of years later. Stick shift, of course.

JD, you mentioned your boys sleeping at the st ock barn during the fair. When I was ten I groomed a dairy heifer for the fair. She won at the local fair, qualifying us to go to the State show in Baton Rouge. I got in a van with the County Agent and a few other kids--I didn't know a one of 'em, and I was by far the youngest. Our animals were loaded in a truck, and we all went to the big stock show at LSU.

As improbable as this may sound, once at LSU I was bunked into a dorm room underneath Tiger Stadium, sharing the room with two LSU students. They treated me like a little brother, even taking me out at night when they went to Tigertown and the off-campus hangouts. I ate in the campus cafeteria and hung around the livestock barn during the day. Stayed there a week and had a great time. I never called my parents, because they didn't have a phone.

Yes, I realize nobody nowadays would send their kid off 300 miles away with a group of essentially strangers, but that was 1951 and it just didn't seem like a big deal at the time. One thing to remember, since I was born the population of the country and the world has more than tripled. That just changes things.

Times change, my paternal Grandmother didn't drive, she had a license but couldn't drive. From what I hear when Illinois started requiring licenses all you had to do was go down pay the money, sign a piece of paper and you had a license. My dad was driving when he was 12 or 13, was even driving some of Grandpa's garbage trucks, ran a morning route most of the time he was in High School. Mom didn't drive when her & Dad got married, he taught her how to drive. Later she taught my Grandma (her mother in law) as she often spent the day at Grandma's house while Dad and Grandpa were working. I can remember when I was very young my Father's sister (my Aunt) didn't drive, I remember her learning and remember when she got her license and they got a second car. One of Dad's aunts never learned to drive.

Dad started me driving while we still lived in the city, moving a car or truck in the driveway. When I was 13 we moved to a farm and within a year I was driving the pick up and tractors all over the place. Was bummed out when I turned 16 as my birthday was also Labor Day so I had to wait an extra day to get my license. All my siblings pretty much got their license at 16, some of that may of been our farm was 4 miles out of the city so it was real handy driving and not having to walk into town to hang out with your friends. Also if you had a license more farmers would hire you for hay work if you could get yourself to their farm.

The next generation was a little different I have a nephew who didn't get a license until he was 21 and then he only got one so he could go into the Michigan National Guard. I often joke the major cause of damage in New Orleans wasn't from Hurricane Katrina but Alex driving a 5 ton around during relief efforts. When he was sent to Iraq they made him a driver on a Humvee, oh this is after he totaled a Humvee in the first 48 hours in country. His younger brothers both got their licenses before they were 17. My daughters- one got her license about 2 months after her birthday but only after some prodding from Mom & Dad. Her excuse "Why get it Mom won't let drive any where even if I do" it was worth it to see her face about a week after she got her license, she asked for a ride to play practice and Mom handed her the key to our Hondacar and told her to drive herself. The youngest daughter is 19 next week and still no license, the driver's ed instructor was being a turd and would only schedule her to drive when she couldn't make it do to some health issues so she was never able to finish driver's ed. She has her permit but still needs more practice, with her off at school it will take a while. But in the week she has been gone to school she seems to be a bit more independent, maybe the license will move up a bit on her priority list.

Remember well some of your thoughts, especially #4, the old "twist feet sideways" manuever. Starting on a hill, toe on brake, a little gas with the heel, & "Don't slip the clutch!!!".
A feature the chev cars had on foot starter models that most people didn't notice- there was a peg on the throttle rod that the starter pedal pushed to give it a little gas when starting. Dad's 39 & 47 had it. Linkage was so worn on his 47 that sometimes it would slip past. Then giving it gas would make the starter kick in, not good. Shut it down, open hood & give the throttle rod a tug, good to go again.Went to push button starter in 49, don't know how long they kept it on the p-ups.
In my day, could get full license at 15. Learner's permit & license weren't valid until the actual card came in the mail. Couldn't drive with just the test score sheet like some states allow now.
Willie

my uncle bought a 52 chevy car that was owned by a little old lady. She had an accident and the front fender was crushed in.He left it at our place.My brother cut the two front fenders off and got it so we could drive it. My uncle siad ,thats good,use it till he gets time to take the motor,he wants to put it in one of his trucks. By the time he came to get it,we put more miles on it than the little old lady did.Also customised it,lightend it up some,took off the clumsy looking air cleaner,made dust on our track around the field,,,,etc,,,etc,,,,He looked st the car,smiled,,,and said keep it!!!!!

There was always a "field car" on the property,used like a gator or such would be today.
Probably 20 or so cousins and siblings learned to drive in one of these cars.
There was a guy,name was Walt. He was a drunk and a wifebeater and supposedly liked little boys.
He just kind of disappeared one winter. Kids were all discouraged from even speaking his name after that. Twenty or so years ago someone found a skeleton up under a shale outcropping. Rumor has it that it was Walt.

JD Seller
What has changed is child protective services would lock me up if I made my kids do what I did growing up on the farm.

I was tall for my age. I was the youngest boy in family. So I was the wheel man(boy). I was behind the tractor wheel of the bailer, truck we picked the hay up on, disked, plowed, combine, cultivator.

The most valuable part of growing up on a dairy was learning how to spread the cow manure. No longer on dairy, but everyone accuses me of spreading it.
George

Some of the difference between "back then" and now is that back then you didn't have 10 year olds that knew everything about human breeding, dressing like prostitutes and parents that permitted it. You didn't have a society that protected worthless, bad kids. You sure didn't have a society that had so many lawyers waiting for the chance to jump into a law suit because some 14 year old boy drove a ratty old farm truck to the feed mill and dinged some guys mailbox. These days you'd have a lawyer trying to get the kid to sue his own parents for allowing it!

We can all reminisce about the good old days, but in this world you don't let your kids out of your sight. We just had 2 Amish girls kidnapped with the intention of making them se x slaves. Fortunately they were recovered alive, but that's what a world full of porn and deviants and a culture that not only allows such perversions to flourish, but forces you to accept it gets you.

yep. Started drivng a one ton Dodge around the farm at 8. Not on the roads though. Used to have to brace both arms on the bottom back side of the steering wheel to build up enough ooompf to push in the clutch or the brakes. Most times stopping just involed shutting off the switch. Alaways tried to park on the level or a bit down hill so as to be able to start in gear instead of having to push in that darn clutch. Lol!

And I loved every minute of it!

I just had a couple days with my sister kids driveing my old 1966 GMC short bed truck. The problem is there use to a Automatic transmission. My truck requires you to drive it has a column shift and drum brakes. Hand choke and a stright six cylinder. You can say it is stock like it was in 1966. Her son drove it to a car show but he first had to learn no obstruction when driveing. MY Truck will not accept for this to happen. The old day required you to drive and to know how. He did a fine job and he had fun ( my sister hates me know L.O.L) Brent

The old man was born in 1909 and at the age of 14 in 1923 after working at an uncles farm for the summer lit out with a single shot .22 and an old dog to trot along beside his horse proceeded to ride for 4 days back to the home place. Eating squirrels or rabbits shot along the way and no supplies but a box of stick matches and a blanket.

Can you imagine that today ??

He also told of the story of the one room schoolhouse where he and the other farm boys would carry their .22's to school and lean them against the wall behind the wood stove during the day. Shoot something on the walk home to toss in the pot for supper.

JD, thanks for the post. I agree with all you have said. I am on the down side of raising seven kids. Only have 2 at home yet. I was raised exactly as you relate. I have done my best to raise my kids the same way. At the age of 14, one of my boys considers it normal to take the loader tractor and clean out the stables, or change the oil in one of the rigs around the place. My three older boys, now out on their own, used to complain about the work we did. Now they relate how many young adult men don't even know how to put on a spare tire. It is sad that our young people spend so much time with TV, video games, computers, etc. I could go on and on... Thanks for the post. Ted

When I took drivers ed in the early 90s there was me and one other kid from outside town. Some of the in town kids spent a couple of days in a parking lot getting over there fear of the car. The instructor thought that no one had any idea about driving until they had taken "his" class. I had been driving tractors for 7 years already, and semis around the yard for a couple of years. Kasey and I had a lot of fun with that guy. I don't think he had near as much hair when we got done our driving time. It didn't take me long to figure out that the instructors brake pedal had a cable that came around to the drivers side. Shove a steel toe boot up under the brake and mash on the gas with the other. The instructor was on his side pounding on his brake pedal, and couldn't figure out why it didn't work...

As far as the bad people in the world, I think we just didn't hear near as much about it. There may not have been as many senseless murders, but there may have been a few well placed ones you never heard about. Ive heard it said a pen of hungry hogs will solve some problems.

Like most of you guys: I was driving tractors, trucks whatever at early ages around the farms. Could not wait to get my license at 16. Living in a rural area, you simply needed a car to get anywhere.

That said, I can not really blame younger people who do not want to drive a car either. While there are lots of jobs out there in this economy, many of those jobs do not pay all that well (barely above minimum wage if that). If you eliminate the need for a car then you can save on significant expenses like car purchase, insurance, license fees, car maintenance, gasoline, etc. (all this savings can make you meager earning go much farther).

That said, if you choose this lifestyle then it means you pretty much must live in a well laid out community where most of your everyday essentials are within walking distance of your residence. Ideally has affordable public transportation like subway, electric train, or even buses for the occasional stuff you want outside your normal walking distance cell, and then you use a taxi for those rare special occasions and only when needed. (Going back to the original post that spurred this one: the cheapskate grandson needs to join a gym closer to home, walk or ride a bike to the gym, take public transport to the gym, or take a taxi to the gym. Sponging of others should not be part of the lifestyle).

Unfortunately many of our cities and communities are simply not laid out this way. But more city planners are seeing some errors of their past planning ways and are trying to implement better plans for the future. All will be needed with population growth plus the future will simply not see cheap energy like we experienced.

One hundred years ago (1914), most villages, towns and cities fit that description. Cars were not yet universal, trolley cars were electric powered in cities and they were horse drawn in smaller communities. Most people could walk or bike to their work. They moved to stay close to their work. Railroads were used for long distance travel. Almost every town of 200 people had a railroad connection.

If you think about it, even today you could get by without a car in most towns of 1000 people or more. The current trends don't look too promising for smaller isolated rural communities though.

Growing up on a small farm I was driving a tractor and truck in the fields at 9. Tractor was a AC WD and the truck was an 50 Ford F4 flat bed so I had to learn how to double clutch from the start. I would drive them from the field to the barn (even on the roads) with loads of hay to be unloaded at the barn and pick up an empty and head back. This was my job at the time. Working ground soon followed then it was pulling wagon loads of ear corn from the field to the crib to unload. This was normal to me.

In the summer I would go with my uncle down in Kentucky to work the Tobacco fields for weeks at a time. My job was to drive. At the end of a hot day us boys would take a dip in the Green river witch was not to far from the barn. Mom and dad knew ware I was and did not really worry about me.

When I turned 16 I took drivers ed in high school and it didn't take the teacher long to figure out that I already knew how to drive so I did a lot of riding and not driving. When I went to take the test at the Ohio State Patrol post I was sitting in my Nova ( 250 3 on the tree manual steering & brakes) waiting for the instructor to come out and get in. He got in looked at me and smiled (I had worked for him before) and said this will be easy! He said you passed! We walked back in and the lady behind the desk said that was quick! I already know he can drive, Give him his license and she did. I guess 7 years of on the job training payed off!

I took vo-ag and FFA in school and it was not unusual for us to come to school with a gun (22 shorts) and go to a farm to do rat killing (I don't think I would try that now) and this was normal for us to do, We were trusted. How times have changed.

Of my 3 boys the youngest was the easiest to get his license, He would help work on the farm, The older 2 wanted no part of it so it was me ,him and dad and he learned quick. When he took his drivers test at the DMV I talked with the instructor that would be testing him and he asked how's his driving? I said I can go to sleep with him driving, Really? Yes sir I can. Nuff said. They left and came back from the test he gave me the thumbs up and said I see what you mean.

We grew up in a different time and we matured at a younger age, We knew the difference between right and wrong and how to be respectfull to our elders and to others. If we didn't you knew what would happen...The BELT!!!! We had fear but todays kids don't, You touch one now they call the cops and report you for child abuse and they know at an early age they have the upper hand and how to exploit it to there advantage. I have seen it many times and don't want to get started on it. So nuff said. Todays kids maybe smarter than we were at the same age but also dumber, They just don't have command cense like we did or the maturity. Not saying there all bad there are a lot of good ones but boy it makes you wonder. Bandit

I must have been about 7 when I was with dad hauling gravel one day. He backed the backhoe up to the bank, set the stabilizers down, told me I know what the levers do, dig him some gravel loose. Set the throttle and jumped in the dump truck. I was loading trucks by 10.

Between 5th and 6th grade I started driving to the barn on Saturday mornings for milking (about 1 1/4 mile) and the tractor with the rock picker. That winter we drug the Farmall B and Allis C out for my cousin and I to rake hay with. I hated working the same section of field with her, I"d make nice square ends on the windrows, she always had big loops and hooks on her ends. I don"t know how she could manage, after 2 rounds, to have a 3-rake-width bow at the end of the field.

I bet you can guess which of us drives a pair of old 1/4-million mile trucks, and which of us just blew up her 140,000-mile Chevy PTCruiser.

When I was living in Ohio (2002) someone northwest of the city let his 13 year old granddaughter drive the pick-up out into the pasture to give the cows some hay. Old busy-body next door called 911 on him, CPS, state and local police, and fire dep"t showed up to haul him off in cuffs and take her to her parents.

Today I find myself telling the boss" kid stuff my dad told me back when. Don"t walk under the loader bucket. Stay off the sidehills. Makes me think of how easy it is to mess something up. And it"s stuff I"ve never really thought about it, just always kinda came natural.

There is plenty of data that shows kids are just as safe now as they were in the past, but with 24/7 news more local stories are broadcast nationwide.

In Indiana it is now once again legal to have a gun in your car on public school grounds, but it has to be locked up out of sight. I don't think that I have ever heard of a school shooting where the shooter had the gun in the back window of a pickup truck, but fear often trumps facts.

Rankrank1: What you maybe over looking is that when everyone was cramped in the urban areas of the late 1800s and early 1900s they did have public transportation. They also did not have a middle class income either.

Many people would love to have us all stuck back into cites with fewer choices. The greenies and the politicians would LOVE to have us all together to be able to control us that much easier.

The first vehicle I drove was a 53 Chevy PU, same setup, starter pedal on the floor... It was my Dads work truck, he would park it behind my Mom's car, she wouldn't even try to drive a standard. So one morning she was blocked in, Dad still asleep, I got in the truck, started it up and moved it. Probably about 7 or 8 years old!

By the time I took drivers ed at 15, I had been driving any and every thing I could get away with, already had my first car up and running, just waiting to get myself legal. Most of the other kids were pretty much clueless.

Remember when we did our "highway driving day"... The instructor had a brake pedal on his side, we were getting on the highway from a crossover intersection. I had stopped, waited for an opening and went for it, He freaked out and got on the brake, nearly got us rear ended! I looked over at him, calmly told him we need to get together on who's driving this car! LOL