On Thursday, in spite of an unfavorable forecast for the weekend, we decided to take a gamble on the weather and restock our Fraser Fir display with a fresh load from the mountains of North Carolina.
Unlike back in the day when we drove up to the mountains and got our trees, Steph and I simply met our wholesale grower in Forest Park and picked up more than 100 trees that were still chilled from the mountain temperatures where they were just hours before. That method is a little more costly that hauling our own, but we’re just not set up, equipment-wise, to transport heavy loads hundreds of miles, much of that distance spent navigating curvy mountain trails.
But we have done it, and it was quite the experience.
Once Bill McLucas went with me in his 1960s grain truck and we stacked trees so high we couldn’t get under some of the awnings at filling stations. The truck performed remarkably well considering its age and the fact that it had an antiquated stock braking system that left a lot to be desired, especially with the steep grades on the roads we were on.
Once, when Mickey and Tammie Harp were selling trees with us, I took a half-ton pickup and a single-axle trailer and brought a big load home from north of Dillard, GA.
Like a lot of our trips back in the day, Mickey and Tammie’s son Nolan and our daughter Stephanie went along.
Nolan used to go everywhere with us. He’d spend a week with us in the summer at the Southeast Old Threshers Reunion in Denton, N.C., and he went along on many an antique tractor fetching trip.
We still laugh about one memorable trip to Kentucky. Just as we pulled into a rest stop on the top of the mountain in Monteagle, TN, Nolan had a violent reaction to the fast-food meal he’d eaten at our previous stop.
I was just heading into the men’s room when Nolan came out and said we needed to get out of there and fast. Without going into the gross details, I’ll just say the nice old maintenance man at the rest area had a mighty nasty job ahead of him, and we weren’t interested in participating. We high-tailed it out of there and Nolan slept all the way home.
But I digress.
Steph and Nolan went with me to get a load of Frasers from “Chick Dillard”, who was from Dillard but lived in Fairburn at the time. He was short of help, so I spent a good bit of the afternoon loading trees, which made us late getting started for home.
Like the trip with Bill McLucas, we piled every tree we could on the truck and trailer and headed south.
It was getting dark when we got to Gainesville, so I stopped and got us all some supper at a Burger King and stopped at a pay phone to let Joanne and Nolan’s parents know that we’d be late getting home.
It wasn’t a long conversation, but when I got back in the truck there wasn’t a bite of food to be found.
Steph and Nolan had eaten both of their meals and all of my Whopper Combo too. Neither of them had any explanation for what happened to my food, but I couldn’t complain because they had behaved remarkably well all day.
(pictured from left to right: Mickey Harp, Carol Reeves & Rick Minter) (pictured from left to right: Nolan Harp and Stephanie Adamek) Photos thanks to the late-Ms. Francis Reeves
Back on the four-lane we’d just gotten up to speed when we saw blue lights in the mirror. The nice State Patrolman had stopped us because the trees on the trailer were blocking the tail lights.
Much to my surprise, he agreed with my suggestion that I stop at the next filling station and rig up some lights on the back of the pile of trees. He followed me to the station and watched as I bought two flashlights and a roll of duct tape.
I taped the flashlights to the trunks of two trees, switched the lights on and headed south, arriving in Inman with the makeshift lights still shining brightly.
That trip came to mind Thursday when the lights on our trailer weren’t working. Steph had driven up separately so she followed me home, running a little rear-guard action to keep me out of danger until I got home.
Some things never seem to change.