Driving With Grandpa

My Grandpa Hess was a warm, wonderful man. I remember fondly the times we shared. As most old people do, he had some interesting truisms. My favorite is on my letterboxing website. "You will not get stuck if you just keep moving." Another one was his admonition to someone shoveling grain into the granary. "Don't worry at all about the toe of the shovel, concentrate on filling the heal and the toe will take care of itself."
Visiting at grandpa's home was special. He had a windmill. A lot of things happened at the windmill. The obvious, was the water would get pumped up into a trough that led to the cattle tank. When the wind blew steady for quite a while the tank would become full. Grandpa had a knack for knowing how close to full the tank was. When it was nearly full, grandpa might ask me to go to the windmill and release the lever which in turn stopped the windmill from turning. Even though the wind would blow whether or not the pump was turning, grandpa did not want to wear out the bearings on the windmill.
Another happening at the windmill was washing grandpa's 1950 Chevrolet. Grandpa was very pleased with his car and kept it clean. It was exceptionally clean compared to our car. Why, dad would drive our car across a rough field to get a closer look at a herd of deer. Or deliver a greasy part to Ole's repair shop. If grandpa needed to haul something, he would put it in the trunk wrapped in a gunny sack.
Often, I would help wash his car. We would suds it up real good and then throw buckets of water onto the car to rinse the suds off. When the car had adequately dried, Grandpa would let me sit in his lap and drive the car. He would choose a short route for me to drive, ending in parking it inside the garage.
Even though I was accustomed to driving tractors, a car was a big deal. And doing anything with grandpa was special.
Kayak Bandit '(*!*)'