Can your feet touch the pedals?

My introduction to the world of automotive types of machinery and vehicles happened at what some consider to be a tender age.

I was about 6 or 7 when we were at the farm and I was allowed to take the wheel of the El Camino, the unmistakable hybrid of truck and car melded together for sophisticated farm work. It was held together by 'spit and baling wire' as Aunt Jewel declared and nothing could hurt this thing.

That theory was put to the test when I was allowed to slip behind the wheel for a drive across the pasture. The fact that I am typing this should indicate that my wide and partially toothless self survived and enjoyed the forbidden pleasure of underage driving.

Not that this one event represented my only opportunity to drive sans license in wallet.

I started moving the pickup around in the driveway and yard as soon as Daddy was sure I wouldn't mangle anything or anyone in the attempt. And when the riding mower joined the family, I hopped aboard for my turn in maneuvering around the obstacles in the yard to offer the precision cut that made it all the better to drive without sanction from the License Bureau.

I can honestly say anytime I was offered the illicit pleasure of DWU (driving while unlicensed) I jumped behind the wheel with all of the gusto of a circus performer under the big top before a capacity crowd. There was a thrill that was beyond compare when sitting behind the wheel that I still enjoy from time to time even now.

What brought all of this merriment of motor vehicles to mind was reading the latest installment on the Pioneer Woman's website about her girls driving the hay truck all over their ranch.

People in rural areas think nothing of stuffing Junior or Sissy behind the wheel at a tender age. The main requirement for farm driving is the ability to drive in a straight line and the singularly most important factor of them all.

Can your feet touch the pedals?

If you can answer in the affirmative to that query, then your posterior is installed in a well worn and beat up seat where abbreviated driving instruction is offered and away you go.

Should you happen to lose control, it is assumed that bobwire will stop your descent into Poplar Creek before you manage to stall the engine in the water. Note to the unaware, for those not from rural America, bobwire is also called "barbed wire" by those who feel the need to impress the folks at the country club.

I can't recall an instance in which I lost control of the car or truck I was shepherding across the pasture. I have managed a pretty good skid on some fresh cow pies from time to time. Everyone needs that experience. It is unlike a snow skid in many respects, not the least of which is the fragrance that accompanies the slide on a hot day in the brilliant sunshine.

There was no such thing as air conditioning with filtration back in that day. And farmers atop the John Deere didn't have GPS units or iPods plugged into the electronic dashboards of an enclosed cab.

Those who rode the ranges and valleys of the '60's in rural America did so while sweating and collecting rings around their collar for an honest days toil in the farming black belt or cotton belt of America.

No part of the romance with the land was left outside when it came time for that Saturday night bath. In order to be ready for Sunday go-to-meeting preaching, the bath was one ritual that involved strong soap and a brush to scrape the remnants of the week from your hide.

I wonder if farmers now appreciate the way things used to be? We have gadgetry for most farm jobs now. Milking machines replaced the burly farmhands who milked a stable full of dairy cows both morning and night. Row planters and pickers replace field hands of every stripe who labored to plant, maintain and harvest from the land.

And no one can deny that the days of 40 acres and a mule pulled plow are long over for most farmers. Though the Amish and the Mennonites cling to some of the old ways, they are even being assailed by the modernity of life on every side.

How many of us can say we had the opportunity to drive early and sleep by an open window where the melody of crickets filled the night air with their music? For many of us, life has a way of pressing in and destroying the simple only to replace it with the vacuous promises of what might be instead of the substance of what truly is wonderful.

Close your eyes for a moment and go back to that happy, bright and sunlit moment of your own childhood and rediscover that time when your feet touched the pedal or you were finally tall enough or when you weren't picked last for the game.

Savor that power of getting to choose what treat would take all of your remaining allowance when the ice cream truck passed along through your neighborhood.

Remember the moment when you had it all, but never knew it until now.