While there, we went for a ride in Don’s vintage car, a black, 1948 Buick Roadmaster. What a treat! It hadn’t been running in eight years, but after installing a new battery, pumping up the tires and adding some fresh fuel, it rumbled along the streets of Sifton, Man. like a charm.
We also went to see a car that belonged to my grandmother; a 1953 Meteor. Sadly, it’s been parked behind a barn, waiting for an engine, for the last 30 years, and is now overgrown with grass and lichen. If I were able, this would be a car I would restore. I sat upon this car's bench seat when only a toddler, and shifted the gears endlessly. I credit this vehicle with my lifelong love of driving, and stick shifts.
Gazing at it, I struck up a conversation with the man on whose property it sat. While a pleasant fellow, he wasn’t about to discuss cars with a woman, and immediately directed all of his responses to Justin, as though I hadn’t spoken at all. Standing irritably on the sidelines, I remembered similarly dismissive situations when I drove trucks for a living.
I’ve held three interesting jobs in that arena. I hauled crude oil, containers bound for overseas and manure. (Nice grouping hey?) It’s not easy for a woman to be taken seriously when she works in a male-dominated occupation. I had to prove myself every time.
It always drew interested stares when our fleet of Bulldog Corral Cleaning trucks pulled into a farmyard, and I hopped out. Men just didn’t expect a woman to be driving a truck hauling muck. Especially a woman sporting lipstick and earrings. Sometimes, the farmers would take off their hats, scratch their heads, and pull my boss aside for a quiet word of concern. Should she be motoring through their intricate corral systems?
“I’m not just some pretty face, you know,” I’d tell farmers with a touch of defiance. Of course, with manure clinging to my cheeks and thick clumps of it crusting in my hair, I really wasn’t a pretty face, but the words would make them smile, and they’d give me a chance.
Once, a man laid in a wooden feed trough for the better part of two days to keep his beady eyes trained on my driving, and at another farm, the owner sat watchfully behind a caragana hedge on a deck chair, thinking I didn’t see him through the dense leaves. Another time, the farmer parked on a hill in his neighbour’s field and trained binoculars on every move my truck made.
Yet, despite their apprehension, the job was done professionally and without incident. When I’d return to those farms the following year, I was always greeted with smiles.
Which brings us to the moral of this story: don’t judge folks based on gender, or any other way either. In actual fact, I know quite a bit about old cars.
Helen lives on the family farm near Marshall, Sask. where she is author, columnist and works in education. To contact her, or learn more about her humour and fantasy books, go to helen.toews.com or write Box 55, Marshall, Sask. S0M1R0
