In this missive, I shall describe one of the 234,810,599.271 reasons I am eternally thankful that I was raised and still live on our family farm. Since we have all this “open space,” family friends would occasionally dump their old vehicles at our place. I now figure the reason they did this was because they were too lazy to take them to the junkyard. Be that as it may, Tim and I relished our good fortune in having something cool to play with and eventually destroy (just like EVERYTHING else we did with ANYTHING we ever got our hands on).  The first such “junker” we obtained was when Roger Waite’s 1951 Dodge Sedan got too rickety to continue to drive safely on the public highways. I believe Tim and I were about 12 or 13 at this time. It was an old, faded blue color had a really big and long door (being a 2-door sedan). The engine was a “flat head straight-8” and it was powerful and fast, at least to our young perceptions of “speed” and “power,” having only a bicycle as our point of reference.  Roger called it “The Dodge Mobile,” which seems logical since our Uncle Ned, then later us, called him “Roger Dodger ”.  “The Dodge Mobile ” sat “down the lane” for what seemed like a long time until Tim and I thought it had been sitting idle much too long. Since the key was left in it (our family NEVER learned did they!), we decided we would see if it would start. After a little bit of “grinding” the starter (the battery miraculously still held a charge) and it not starting, as farm boys we knew what to do. We got a coffee can from our “fire burner” and filled it with gas from the “gas barrel.” We then pulled the air cleaner off and poured some gas down the carburetor. The powerful  “flat head straight-8” came to life with a series of sputters and backfires both out the tailpipe and the carburetor. It eventually started to run a little smoother, but never did run normally. It never occurred to us at the time to add fresh gas to the tank because the existing gas in the tank we ran it on was probably full of water. Add to this it probably didn’t run that smoothly in the first place, which was one reason Roger “junked it” at our place. Nevertheless, we had a lot of FUN with it. We finally got our own “Puddle Jumper” as we called it. We would run it up and down “The Pony Express Trail” which was a lane between our 2 fields north of the house. (See pic below). It was named because we always rode our horses up and down it UNTIL we discovered the fun and excitement of our very own  “Puddle Jumper”! We “rodded” it up and down the lane until the radiator “boiled over.” We found the cause was a mouse nest was inside it. How the mouse got in there remains a mystery to this day. When our hot rodding fun would stop due to a “boil-over,” we would take a 2X4 and release the radiator cap and the water and steam mixed with remnants of the mouse nest would shoot up and hit the underside of the open hood. Eventually we would see if we could “blow the engine” by flooring the accelerator and have the engine run full throttle! It never blew, but finally “froze up” from continued overheating due to the mouse nest obstruction. We towed it with a tractor back to the “thicket” and used it as a target for our .22 rifles. One time I was at an oblique angle and I tried to shoot the windshield out with my .22. The projectile ricocheted off with a sound “just like in the cowboy movies”! When we were circa freshmen in high school, Roger Waite dumped off another “junker.” This time it was a blue 1955 Ford Station Wagon with a broken “A” frame (that was back when autos still had frames)! This time we added our classmate Gary Howell to the mix. We “rodded” up and down the “Pony Express Trail” as we had done a few years earlier with the “Dodge Mobile.” The sense of Deja’ Vu was weighing heavily on us only this time we were full- blooded destructive teenagers! Gary was between Tim and me as we were flying down the dust-laden lane and Gary said, “The radio still works”! Immediately after saying that, he commended to smash the front of the radio with his heel until just a hum was heard from the totally smashed radio! Since this was an automatic transmission, we would get going as fast as we could, then jam it in reverse then “floor it.” This resulted in the rear wheels spinning in reverse and causing a large choking dust cloud both outside and inside the vehicle! The lane was rutted with innumerable ruts where the end of the broken “A” frame dragged. In spite of that malady, we were able to attain impressive speeds down of dusty lane. Unlike the “Dodge Mobile,” we were eventually successful in finally “blowing the engine”!  In a future missive, I will relate how both Tim and me unwittingly used this “blowing the engine” talent with our “good” cars after we finally got our driver’s licenses!