Posted: Saturday, March 8, 2008 12:00 am
MARY KETTL
Perspective
Everybody likes to think that he or she is one cool customer, someone who would bring a Clint Eastwood-like serenity and decision-making to any difficult situation. If you asked me, I would assure you that I handle stress well. You may not want me performing CPR on you - I'm not that good at remembering directions - but I don't call 911 just because there's a bee in the house, either.
I tried to remember this the other day when I was at my friend George's farm, learning how to back up a tractor and trailer, an exercise that had taken me from one end of the distress spectrum to the other - from mild frowning to audible swearing to bellowed threats - in only a few minutes. The rumbling engine of the 1957 Farmall drowned out most of my expressions of chagrin, but George didn't need to be a lip reader to gather that I wasn't reciting the Rosary as I wrestled with the wheel of a vehicle that, although equipped with tires big enough to drive over your house, did not have power steering.
"I think you're getting it!" George said brightly in the sudden silence that fell after I jammed the gearshift and killed the motor again. I looked narrowly at my friend, a farmer whose movie star grin, optimistic nature, and ability to start a chainsaw on the first pull sometimes make even his grandchildren hate him. We were in his woods, where George had felled and sawed nearly the entire length of an old oak in the time that I had moved the trailer eight feet.
"You're doing just fine!" George repeated, as I pulled twigs and bits of tree branches out of my hood. I had been coming to George's farm two or three days a month to work outside, hang around horses and dogs, and apply my liberal arts training to operating heavy machinery. It was usually fun and educational - nobody in my thesis group could talk about soybeans the way I could - but even if you pretended not to notice the demented crop circles of flattened snow and crushed saplings where I had tried to turn the tractor around, it was obvious that George would have time to cut down a few more trees, build a log cabin, and invite people over for coffee before I arrived with the wood trailer.
George did not want me to give up. "You learned to back up your horse trailer, didn't you?!" he asked encouragingly.
"George, you've seen my trailer!" I shouted patiently. Did he think those dents in the front end came from the factory? I had learned to back up my horse trailer by turning my body in fantastic contortions to look out the rear window - "use your mirrors" is just an expression - and chanting, "Turn the bottom of the wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go!" over and over. Repeating the "Turn the bottom of the wheel in the direction you want the trailer to go" mantra did not work with George's trailer, however, because every time I eased into reverse, the whole outfit would immediately jackknife in such a way that the right rear tire of the tractor would try to climb over the tongue of the trailer.
George has always been a patient teacher, letting me try things until I either figured them out or we ran out of Band-aids, and he motioned to me to back up again. "Little corrections!" he emphasized, holding his thumb and finger half an inch apart to indicate how much I should turn the wheel.
What George didn't understand is that I'm not any better with little corrections than with big ones, a trait that became obvious when another friend tried to teach me to knit this winter. Knitting is a hobby in which people are assigned a ball of fluffy yarn and two pointed stabbing devices, with which they are left to flail and poke until the fluffy yarn has been turned into an 18-inch mat of knots and holes, problems, my friend had assured me, that could be solved by making small adjustments - little loosening here, a little tightening there. For weeks I knitted with determination, unraveling and reknitting until the yarn, though wilted, had been worked into a little blue rectangle of fairly even stitches. More than a potholder, but not quite a scarf, it was a work in progress. Knitting was supposed to be relaxing, Judy had said: for centuries mild-mannered Scandinavians had passed the dark winter hours turning sheep into intricately patterned sweaters and dining room sets;
those who failed at knitting became Vikings and took up pillaging and plundering instead.
I was in a pillaging mood myself as I turned the key to start the tractor again. I cranked the steering wheel and slapped at the sticky gearshift, pulling ahead to straighten out the wheels. Life was a series of little corrections, small changes in the pattern, a lighter touch on the wheel. George smiled and waved, and I let out the clutch slowly, inching the tractor in reverse. I wouldn't get it right that time, or even the next time, but I would eventually get it.
Mary Kettl is a former junior high teacher in Gillette. She lives in Minneapolis.