The skid loader and the t-shirt - edit - in These titles mean nothing.

I'm wearing my Melissa Etheridge t-shirt. I found it the other day at the bottom of the s-shirt barrel. I was wearing it in the famous Super C picture and I intended to have Jim take a picture of me on a bigger open tractor. The t-shirt is good shape. I never wore it much. It's a 'good' t-shirt. There is a story behind it.

When John was at Iowa State he worked at the concert venue - forget its name - starts with an H. She gave a concert and he got a shirt. I'm sure he didn't pay for it. He was eager to give it to me. This was around 1990 and she had come out as gay. After the show someone on the crew found a note that had been thrown onto the stage. Whoever it was - it could have been John - took the note to someone in her party, thinking it would be treated respectfully and given to the singer. Instead the person in the entourage laughed and threw it away.

I think of that story when I wear the shirt.

Last night - in my Melissa Etheridge shirt - I did a bit of skid loader driving. Jim had managed to wedge the skid loader between the barn and one of the concrete 'wings' that come out from the barn driveway. He said he was pushing over weeds. It's wet and slippery and a pretty steep incline. He intended to pull the skid loader out backwards with the cab tractor and I was supposed to be in the skid loader assisting as he did it.

My machinery driving pretty much consists of helping get stuff unstuck. I accept that. It's not exactly a noble calling but it's what it is. So I climbed over the bucket into the little cab.

Skid loaders are extensions of your body. They make you into a robot. One of a man's happiest days in his life is when he gets he first skid loader. It just increases his capabilities. I only drive it when it's stuck so I am pretty amateurish but I understand the concept.

It comes alive when there is weight in the seat. Little lights come on. I have to be 'tootered', as my brother said yesterday in Facebook, each time I drive it. I have to release the brake, and turn the key. It has a rabbit, turtle throttle. And it's driven with a lever in each hand, pull back to go backward, push forward to go forward. The amount you pull/push each lever determines which direction it goes, by determining the amount of power that goes to the wheels on each side. Our skid loader has wheels, some have tracks. If ours had tracks it probably wouldn't have gotten stuck.

When being in a small machine being pulled backward by a large machine, a person pretty much just has to have faith, and I have faith. I applied backward power to the skidloader and after a few lurches, I and the skid loader were back on firm footing. I backed it up toward the machine shed. That was my vehicle driving for the night.

Melissa would have been proud. It's still too bad about the note though.

edit - - bonus chest selfie - -

Takes two hands. Like driving the skid loader.