My first experience on a farm

This is a pretty funny story. I was probably about four or five years old and my dad was driving Craig and me home from Charlotte one afternoon before the Interstate 77 was built, so we were on a country road as were most all of the non-residential roads at that time.

Unfortunately, our car either ran out of gas or had some other problem, because suddenly we had to pull over. We were out in the middle of nowhere. I remember my dad taking us to the closest place he could see which was a farm. In looking for someone to ask to use their phone, we walked into a barn. Whether I asked my dad if I could explore or my dad simply relaxed his hold on my hand I don't know, but I remember being suddenly free so I excitedly ran out of the barn.

Well, my exploration did not get me very far. I got only just outside the barn door when my feet encountered something extremely slippery and I became airborne. Next thing I knew I was sitting in fresh cow manure!

All I remember next was being held by my dad while he walked along the road we had been on (evidently the farm did not have a phone or we had found no one to ask) hitchhiking with Craig in tow; I don't think Evan was with us or was not yet born. My dad later recalled that the amusing, and slightly embarrassing thing was that, since I had soiled my pants in the cow manure, and he had had no other pants to change me into, I was exposed to the world from the waist down. An interesting sight for any prospective hitchhiker!

We must have been offered a ride, made it home safely, and successfully retrieved our car because the rest of that memory for me is incomplete and now just a laughable story; hitchhiking in those days was not the danger it is today, especially in a pretty country area. But like some people can say they know what soap tastes like (I can't), I know what cow manure feels like!!