Stuck Truck in the Muck

It was loaded with hay to be delivered to the goats and the donkey when I had the idea to let my youngest son, Jordan, drive the pickup down to the gate where I was waiting with the goats for their delicious meal. In retrospect, he deserved and needed my presence beside him, but I elected, instead, to let him accomplish this task without me. He pulled out of the driveway and headed down in my red truck with all the confidence of an inexperienced 14 year old without a driver's license. The trek to the gate was going well when suddenly without warning the truck did not cooperate and instead headed in a different direction. Soon I noticed the wheels turning but the truck not moving.

I quickly shut the gate ineffectively and ran toward the truck to help. I had allowed the driver, my son, to drive over a part of the land that was thick with mud. Upon arriving to the truck, I heard a noise behind me and discovered several goats had followed me apparently interested in the philosophical conundrum of a stuck truck and how it would be resolved. Of course, instead of proposing a solution, they instead showed great interest in the hay still sitting in the back.

Using my perceptive powers of logic, I quickly deduced that of the two problems, stuck truck and loose goats, the goats had become the most pressing challenge. So I grabbed a bundle of hay, and carried it to the fenced field which then encouraged their following. I threw it over the fence and most of the goats, eager for dinner, went through the gate happily. Noticing, however, one goat whose desire for freedom outweighed his desire for food, I decided to deal with the initial problem of the truck rather than the one loose goat.

Unfortunately all my efforts, boards under the tires, digging out the mud, slow rocking motions, were in vain, and the truck continued its downward journey into muck-land with a destination imagined best by Dante. Being an uxorious man, I took my wife's suggestion and we contacted our neighborhood truck hauler up the road who came with his tractor (told me the same story he told last time this happened) and pulled us out of mud kingdom. While waiting for the tractor to arrive, we herded the wayward goat back through the gate where the goats could all renew their unified spirit as a family whose purpose is to eat and proliferate.

Jordan and I then concluded our adventure by backing down to the correct spot and delivering the rest of the hay. It was an exciting time for both of us as we finished our original goal and returned to the house. Although he was a bit discouraged at his own driving ability, I reminded him that there are very few, perhaps no men with a truck in the country that have not been stuck a time or two. Being stuck is a rite of passage for a young man. But somewhere in this event is a lesson: it happens, do your best to avoid it, do your best to fix it, and look to friends for help. Also, for me as a father, I learned to be a better guide and teacher. Children need the opportunity to try and maybe fail, but they also deserve to have a loving hand nearby to offer suggestions for avoiding the mud. The mud is there, may I do a better job of "steering" my children around it rather than into it.