Ok, come on back real slow,” Grandpa Gene said as I watched him in the side mirror. He wore loose overalls, and his blue eyes shone brightly beneath his worn pork pie hat. My little sister Ruth sat beside me as I put the old Chevy stick-shift truck into reverse and eased the clutch out.
As the youngest of five siblings, Ruth and I were often Grandpa Gene’s sidekicks on our folks’ Gunnison ranch, and he had endless little jobs for us.
When we were little, he’d have us straighten used nails so he could reuse them, or he’d drive us to the hayfields in the fall, and we’d have to pick up obtrusive rocks and toss them into the bed of his truck. A thankless, hot job we hated. But now we were teenagers, Grandpa was in his seventies and slowing down, and our jobs with him usually involved driving.
When the neighbor called earlier and said one of our steers had gotten through the fence, it was our job to hook up the horse trailer and retrieve the renegade. As I backed up to the trailer hitch, Grandpa had his arm up and bent at the elbow with one finger pointing straight up. Like most Italians, Grandpa used his hands as he spoke, conveying emotion, energy, and emphasis. On the ranch, his leathery, work-worn hands, with one finger that refused to straighten due to an injury when he was young, were also a go-to communication tool. Some of his hand signals were clear, like pointing to indicate direction. Others were unconventional, like his backup cues. I watched in the rearview mirror as he moved his forearm back and forth, finger up, back and forth like a metronome. His nice, easy rhythm meant to keep backing up.
“A little to the right,” he said, pointing in that direction. I turned the wheel, not too hard. I’d been driving on the ranch a long time, much longer than I’d had a license, but backing up was still a challenge. The trick was to reverse with precision so the coupler on the truck met the two-inch ball hitch on the trailer, which takes finesse and skill. Not an easy task to master. I glanced in the center rearview mirror, and things looked pretty well lined up to me.
“Easy, Little Sister. Easy,” Grandpa said, using a favorite nickname he had for both Ruth and me. I slowed to a creep and kept my eyes on him. The closer I got, the faster his metronome went. A couple more feet and Grandpa dropped his arm and shook his head.
“That ain’t no good. You gotta pull ahead, move it over about eight inches.” I pulled forward a bit, stopped, and shifted into reverse.
That’s when my foot slipped off the clutch, and the truck lurched backward. A crunch. I hit the brake and stalled the engine. Ruth let out a squawk at the same time Grandpa hollered, “Whoa!” I jumped out of the truck to observe the damage.
The bumper had hit the ball hitch, but nothing looked bent, just a little scratched.
“This time let go of the clutch real slow,” Grandpa said as I got back in the truck to try again. Grandpa, who could have backed to the hitch in one try, didn’t take over for me, but continued as a patient guide, encouraging me with his hand signals and gentle, gravelly voice. We went back and forth like this many times, with me driving and him directing. At last, we got the trailer hitched up, but by then I was sweaty and flustered, and it felt like half the day had gone by. Ruth, Grandpa, and I drove the truck and trailer to the neighbor’s corral and retrieved the steer.
When we got back and unloaded the animal, it was time for a short lunch in Grandpa’s truck. We shared his ‘Nilla wafers and listened to him tell stories about working with mules up at the mine in Crested Butte. Then it was off to the hayfield. I ran the baler that day, and Ruth and Grandpa shared mowing duties. I hadn’t gone far before I had to stop my machine because too much hay had plugged the baler chute. I started working on the problem, not too far away from Ruth and Grandpa.
Ruth was on the mower, and when she came around near him, I saw Grandpa get out of his truck. He hurried toward her, limping as he did on his left leg, where doctors had fused his ankle bones in an attempt to strengthen the joint after repeated sprains. He waved his arms wide over his head, signaling her to stop. She stopped, cut the sickle, and leaned out of the cab.
“What?” she hollered over the roar of the mower.
“You rest, Little Sister,” he called out.
“I’ll mow awhile.”
“No. I’ve only done two rounds,” she shouted. One of her jobs on the mower was to keep him from getting too tired, and she took the assignment seriously. She started the sickle blade and drove off. Another round with the mower and Grandpa was back again, gesturing for her to
Stop. This time Ruth didn’t even slow up, shaking her head ‘No’ at him from inside the cab. Her long, thick braids swung back and forth, too, emphasizing her message. An ordinary man would have been happy to hang out in the quiet truck, listening to Kenny Rogers on his eight-track
cassette player and drinking coffee rather than being in the cab of the loud mower with no air conditioning. But Grandpa loved to mow, and he loved to work. Born in 1905 to immigrant parents in Crested Butte, he was one of the hardest-working people. In the eighth grade, he exaggerated his age to get a job helping build a bridge across the East River. As an adult, he worked for years at the Bulkley coal mine as a fire boss. He was proud of never missing a day of work. So he was determined to get back on that mower. The next time Ruth came around and he signaled her, she simply pretended not to notice. This little charade went on for a bit, but Grandpa wasn’t about to be out-smarted. Next round he placed himself smack in front of the mower, arms up, palms facing her. Ruth stopped and leaned out of the cab.
“Move, so I don’t run you over,” she yelled. Grandpa folded his arms across his chest and didn’t budge. Ruth shut down the mower and climbed down the steps and out of the cab.
“You’re a stubborn old man, you know that,” she called to him as she ambled back to the truck.
“You can have the applesauce in my lunchbox,” he hollered from the cab of the mower.
I finished getting the hay free from the baler and started my machine, smiling at Ruth and Grandpa’s antics. It had been a typical day with Grandpa; nothing too dramatic or eventful, just time spent working together. As a kid, those days didn’t feel very exciting or important, and I didn’t know they’d mean so much to me as time went on.
Not long ago, I bought a car with a backup camera, and one day when I put it in reverse, I got too close to the garage, and the car started chirping, slow at first, but faster and more frantic the closer I got to hitting the building. I couldn’t help but think of Grandpa and his hand signals, of how he was not only our backup camera and our backup mower in the hayfield, but on many levels, he was the backup reinforcement for the entire ranch.
He was with us every day, irrigating, fixing machinery, sharpening sickle blades, and putting up with grandkids. He let me and my siblings think we were helping him, but in the end, it was us who reaped the benefits. Thinking of him and those days working together, my heart skips a beat, and my eyes get a little watery. Oh, what I would give to watch Grandpa and Ruth do their who-gets-to-mow routine again, to hear his voice calling me ‘Little Sister,’ or to see him gesturing to me in my rearview mirror one more time.