Back in the 50’s living on the farm, you had to learn to improvise according to the season. Well, it was indeed springtime and you worked according to the temperatures.  Dad had some wood that needed to be hauled to the mill. His truck would only carry about six cord of wood. Our road was not solid late in the afternoon during those spring months. If one got up early and got busy, they could drive the loaded truck out over the frozen ground. Well, Dad and older brother loaded the truck the day before and hoped to get the truck to solid ground before the sun came peeking over the treetops. The road had indeed frozen the night before and all looked solid enough to drive the truck out. But again, Mother Nature likes to play games with country folks. One short section of road did not freeze solid. The loaded pulp truck hit that spot and stopped right there. The rear wheels sunk quite a bit into the mud. About all they would do is spin and throw mud everywhere. After much strong language and a bit of ingenuity, they decided to just hook a long chain around one of the tires that spun so easily. The other end of the chain was hooked to a nice solid maple tree. As the wheel spun, it acted like a winch and began to pull the truck forward a little at a time. They then hooked a stick of four-foot pulp to the opposite wheel so it would not spin. The mud hole was not very long, but long enough to ruin the day. After a few hours of playing around with this hook-up, the truck finally got to some nice solid ground. They then unhooked their contraptions and drove the truck closer to the main road. Of course, they then had to change out of their mud-soaked pants before taking the load to the mill. The sun was now rising high and the whole road was becoming greasy and soft. Big brother who was home on a furlough and was expecting a visitor that day. He had asked me to be around to warn his buddy not to drive into the mud hole. I hung around outside and soon I spied a car coming down the road.  I ran to warn the fella, “don’t go any further’.   But he was a soldier, a grown man and just knew his car would make it through the mud hole. He was not going to listen to a nine year old country boy. His fancy car would go right though that little bit of mud. But, he didn’t know the hole was almost two feet deep and off he went. He hit that hole and stopped right there.  “Told ya so”, were the first words out of my mouth.  Grown men just do not like a skinny nine year old saying things like that. Now, it was my task to harness the horse to pull the car out of the mud hole. Shaking my head and mumbling some of Dad’s favorite words I had heard earlier, I went to the barn to get ole Tom, the horse. Now, ole Tom was the best pulling horse I ever saw. While working in the woods with him, he would pull so hard, his belly would almost touch the ground. If the log got stuck, he would wait for me to re-hook the log. Then with just a few kind words to Ole Tom and away he would go. I harnessed ole Tom and hooked him to this fancy car. But as soon as the whiffle tree became tight, Tom would stop. He just would not pull hard even with a little coaxing. “What’s going on ole Tom?” Finally after a couple of tries, Ole Tom just backed up and gave the car a good stiff kick with both hind legs. Then he did his best and pulled that not so fancy car out of the mud. When I asked the old fella that owned Tom why the horse acted like that. He explained the horse had been hooked to another car once before but the car hit him after it was pulled out. You see ole Tom remembered that. Now, you see people are almost like that. They will do their best to pull you out of the mud, all it takes is a few nice words. But if you try to run over them, by golly they may just end up kicking you if they get the chance. Some folks are like that old stuck log we try to pull out. There is no amount of pulling or hooking that is going to change them. So one has to just unhook and go home. All it would have taken was moving a little bit, a kind word or two and progress would have been achieved. So today, as I look at that frozen ground I think of Dad and Ole Tom the horse. They were able to get over the rough times and end up enjoying the day. We got muddy, but we made it work.  Mud does indeed wash off, but a painful memory will always sit in the back of ones mind. Now, just the other day, I was asked to do something for a group of folks. I looked around and mentioned it has been a cold winter. But I was quite sure Hell had not frozen over yet. That ended that conversation.  Enjoy the mud and have fun folks.  Ken White COB mountainman