When I was a girl, I often spent time on Grandma and Grandpa McFarland’s ranch. Their place was only 5 miles from our house. The first 2 miles of pasture between us belonged to my parents, the rest to my grandparents. Six barbed wire gates separated the pastures, and red and white Hereford cattle grazed along the rolling hills near Morse Creek. 

To take me home, Grandpa would hitch his bay team to the surrey, and we’d take the pasture trail instead of the main road, which shaved about 7 miles off the trip. When we came to a gate, Grandpa would say whoa, the horses would stop, and I’d jump out and open it. Grandpa would click his tongue, the signal for the team to pull the surrey through. Then they’d wait while I shut the gate and jumped back in. It was easy: The team was well-trained from many years of work around the ranch. 

I was 11 the summer of 1940, when Grandpa’s youngest son, whom we all called Doc, decided it was time his father learned to drive a car. Doc bought him a used late-model Ford. I don’t remember any formal driving lessons, but I’m sure Doc showed Grandpa what to do. Grandpa was in his late 60s by then, but aside from maybe a handful of car rides, he’d always traveled by horseback, team and buggy or train. 

So the next time Grandpa took me home, we got in the car. It started out with a little jerk, but we soon picked up speed as we rumbled across the bridge over the slough. 

Grandpa turned off on the pasture trail. We bounced over a little ditch and then across a cow trail. All was fine until we came to the first gate. I waited for Grandpa to brake. Instead, he said, “Whoa!” 

Before we knew it, the gate made its way over the hood, up the windshield and clear up into the air before crashing to rest on the ground right behind us. Grandpa was the kind of man who kept his tongue, but I could guess what he thought as he climbed out of the car and proceeded to wire the fence shut to keep the cattle in. 

Five more gates to go. I wondered if we would make it home. 

At the next gate, Grandpa actually applied the brake, though not with real conviction. By the one after that, he stopped almost in time, breaking only the bales that held the gate shut. Gate by gate he slowly got better, and by the time we got to the last one, he had actually learned how to slow down and stop. 

I’ve never been so happy to be home. My guess is that Grandpa felt the same way, since, for the best that I can recollect, that was the very last time he drove a car