From Big Wheels(sock gloves included) to Big Juicy Mini-Vans. Jason and Dave discuss their earliest modes of Transportation. Want to turn the back of your truck into a mobile swimming pool? Done.

   Welcome, millions, perhaps billions of faithful podcast listeners. We are your host, Jason Kimber and Dave Simmons. We'll bring you along with us as we share life stories from our experiences living in small towns, or in Jason's case, an unincorporated community. That's true, along with genius suggestions for solving the world's problems and a whole lot of laughs.

This is the Small Towns Podcast. Jason, as we got here today, I started thinking just cruising down from our homes and, and we got it kind of nice to be able to drive in, in a nice vehicle, listening to our tunes, singing to the top of our lungs, air Supply, which by the way, I, I've said it before, I think on a podcast, if you can't get on board with air supply, You can't get on board with me.

I could not agree more. I mean, you can sing that stuff to the top of your lungs. Yeah, much to my children's chagrin. I most days, but they haven't been schooled in the finer points of seventies music, but that's my job as parent. It is our joke, but I have to believe that back in the day, cruising around in the, in the mean streets of, uh, grouse Creek.

Yeah. The mean 30 mile dirt road of Grouse Creek. You weren't in nearly as comfortable of circumstances in your modes of transportation. Well, you know, that's a fair question, but when you say comfortable, I guess comfortable as really in the, uh, I dunno if you could say the eye of the beholder, maybe the seat of the beholder.

It's hard to say because that's kind of a fun rabbit hole to jump down, if you will, Dave, because we had a lot of modes of transportation, if you will. I'm sure he is a little dude. Oh yeah. Okay. Let's, let's start from the very beginning because. Okay. As Julie Andrew says, it's a very good place to start.

At first, I picture little Jason. Yes. Basically running around with a stick and a hoop, and you're pushing that stick and the hoop around all over town. Well, okay. Listen. No stick, no hoop. Okay. I don't know. Yeah. Say away you want, but I know what I have in my head and, and I think we, yeah, and I actually wore like these cute little pants knickers right up just below the knee.

Is he starting to buckle his Nick Ucks below the knee? Is there a dime novel hitting his corn crib? A nicotine stand on his index finger? He got trouble, my friends. I'm not even sure what a corn crib is, but that's, uh, that's Harold Hill. That's from uh, oh, that's uh, music man. The music man. Music man. Yeah.

Yes. That's a story for a whole other podcast, but I secretly, I think I should be cast as the music man. He's said what? He said what? He's a music man. He plays clarinets to the kids in the town. You know, I'll tell you what, we're gonna have a podcast that is, the title of it will simply be tangent. Well, you got trouble, my friend.

No, I mean for me it was a big will and I, we told that story before we started on a big will and then you graduated to a bike. But did you start on a big will? I did. Well, I, we did have big wills, but the problem with the big wills in the, uh, unincorporated area of Grass Creek, if you will, is that big wheels didn't do well on gravel roads.

No, they wouldn't have, you would've had to start riding on a bike. Yeah, I'm gonna say those gravel roads just chew right through those plastic tires. But I can still, in my mind's eye, I can picture you on your big wheel with your sock clad hands. Yeah. Tube socks up to my elbow tube socks hunch. And John wore gloves.

Yeah. So we had to wear gloves. You did? But I didn't poke holes in 'em. It was just nubs. Just more like it was like little mittens. Yeah. That's all tube sock mittens. Yep. That's how we did it. But yeah, I mean, for sure I started on a bike, but I remember my first bike was an old hand-me-down bike that had solid tires.

So no tubes in the tire. No tubes in the tire. Just hard rubber. It was so old Dave, that like chunks of the tire were missing. I didn't even know that was possible. Oh, for sure, buddy. Can we do it now? 'cause those little goat heads around, I feel like I'm just done. I, I'm done fixing flat tires on my kids' bikes.

We actually should go back to that because listen, these tires, goat had nothing good because I don't want that. No. Yeah. So I started on that. Then of course, I think I've referenced this before. My home, my beautiful blue and yellow B M X huffy. I love that bite. Yeah, I rolled the tires off that sucker. But when we start talking about like real modes of transportation, I can't help but think how we got around town.

And you were three miles from the middle of town? Yeah, three and a half miles from the store, church school, post office area. And so I had the best parents and they were very concerned of making sure that we had a lot of fun. And I do remember. Most summers, my dad, we had an old, just a beautiful navy blue, one ton dodge pickup truck, and my dad would, he had an old heavy tarp and he would line the back of that truck with his old tarp.

And then of course, what else would you do? You'd fill that sucker full of water. You got a traveling hot tub. Yeah, you got a traveling hot tub that was super, super cold, but it was just a traveling swimming pool. And uh, so we'd line that sucker, fill it just as close to the top as we dare. And then my dad would just slowly, of course, three of us kids would just jump in the back and nothing but our swimsuits.

And then he would just slowly drive us up the road, you know, up to the store to maybe get. Popping a candy bar, you know what I mean? Yeah. But you have to be careful, buddy. You're gonna lose a lot of that water on that drive, but you gotta drive real slow. Well, on a dirt road you can drive slow as you want.

Well, yeah. 'cause you gotta drive real slow. 'cause I mean, if you ever like you, its a good dirt road though. Right? It's a good dirt. A real good dirt road. 'cause you know, if you ever like even driven in your car with maybe like a hot cup of, you know, hot chocolate or something. Yeah. Kinda gotta ride with it.

Yeah, you do. You gotta ride with it so you don't spill. Yeah, you do. Just picture, just driving, you know, and you can't see this. Podcast listener, but my hands are just kind of going like the motion of the ocean. Okay. You know what I mean? You gotta be careful because if my dad drives too fast or stops too, suddenly I'm the little guy at the time.

I mean, I could just, I could just sail right outta that s slosh right outta that thing. Just slo right outta that. And, uh, mid front crawl, he's treading water. Next thing you know, he is on the side of the road. Just try to swim. Probably should have put my mom like up in like a little life chair bath, like life chair seat right there on top of the Yeah.

With one of the little orange, uh, safety tube things there. Yeah, exactly. Just. Throw that little ring out there to anybody in need. David, we lost Jason. He's out on the side of the road. He was mid front crawl. Well, we'd do it. We would, my dad would fill that up and that was a great summer activity. He would just drive up the road and we'd just swim.

I mean, it was a great way there. There was no, you know, municipal, Dave, we had Logan. Oh. Oh yeah. Any anybody listening from Logan that's in around our age, they will remember Logan. And we used to go down to Logan and that little kid pool was mostly urine. I'm pretty sure that, pretty sure. I almost drowned one day in the other pool when somebody, they used to give you mats to go down the water slide.

That wasn't very long, but somehow I went under the water and came up and somebody's mat was there and I was, I had not drowned. At least in my head I was, but, well, I don't know how you measure that. Like how many lengths. Was like the pool at Loga. Not very far. Like a big fella could come down the steep one on the mat.

Yeah. And if he really gets cooking, he can go all the way across the pool. Yeah. So people were jumping off. The little trampoline wasn't a diving board, it was a little trampoline thing you could jump off of and Okay. And then into the water you could hit People heard of logon. It sounds like a lot of fun.

But I'm here to tell you the length of course of my municipal, of the, uh, David and Elizabeth Kimber Memorial Municipal, yes. Was about nine feet. Yeah, so you gotta drive slow. You can maybe get some laps in before you lose half of the water. By the time you get back from getting your soda in a, what was it?

A pop and a candy bar popping. And a candy bar, buddy. You get back to the house, you maybe have an inch or two left of water. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and it was interesting depending on how fast or how slow you went, like. At one point the deep end was by the cab, and another point the deep end was back on the tailgate.

Well, you gotta do a swim check. You gotta get your merit match. Yeah. But hey, look, dad, I just, I just barely ate like, you know, it's not been 30 minutes. He's like, you should be fine. You're gonna be fine. You should be fine. But that was just one mode of transportation. Another favorite mode of transportation.

I'm gonna try and describe this in the best way that I can. A rack in the back of your truck. You're gonna need to explain what a cattle rack is, okay? So I'm sure that most of you out there know what a horse trailer is, okay? Okay. I'm gonna go that far. Okay? Go that far. Well give me that. Um, but if you want to just haul like one horse or one cow, Or maybe a couple of sheep, A couple of calves.

You mean like the ones you shot on accident? You could haul those two. They're not gonna be running around much. Yeah, you'll have to reference. Sorry about that. That's, dang, it's so sad. If you don't understand that story, listeners, you're gonna have to go back. Jason killed two sheep in one shot. One shot.

It's coming to Taylor. Seven with one blow. Um, But yeah, so it was like a rack that you would actually put in the back of your pickup truck and it had like a sliding gate in the back that you could actually back up to a loading chute or a loading dock and put a horse in or a cow in. And so occasionally we would have to do that to just haul again, one animal around.

Well, if that occasion should ever need to happen, we'd begged dad to just leave the racking for a little bit longer. Because there was nothing better than riding in the back of the truck with a rack in. 'cause then you could crawl up the rungs of the rack, if you will. Mm-hmm. And then, boy, the wind is just blowing through your hair.

But of course you know you gotta be safe, safety first. I mean, you're in the back of the truck so you can't fall out. Right. But there we did have a few standard rules depending on the height of the person. So for me, I, a little guy, I could probably climb up to the second or the third bar in the rack. But the top of the rack, Had to come at least chest high.

That was the rule. That was the rule, because you can't just, if you get any higher, you know, if it's at the waist, then I'm just gonna tumble out right out of it. Yeah. Out onto the road. That was a great way to kind of travel around and see the science. You rode your bike, you rode in the swimming pool car.

Yeah. For us, we were, after big wheels, we went straight to bikes and boy, we were on our bikes a lot. Yeah. We'd go down into the mysterious Edgewood Hall. Really nobody knew what was going on down there except for the peacocks that I told you about. Yes. Peacocks down there. There were lizards down there and David Webb used to like to pull the tails off the lizards.

He used to tell me, oh, they'll just grow too bad. Two. That's what they say. You pull off the tail of a lizard, it's gonna grow two. Now he might've just been telling me that to make feel better. No, I get a fact check because I hear they'll grow back, but I don't want they grow. Two, I hear they grow two.

Okay, well we can look into that. I'll just watch the wild crafts with my son and we'll see how that works out. Exactly. So we used to ride bikes everywhere and we would make jumps. Uh, we would get some logs and then put some boards up and we would try to launch off. You know, in hindsight it's not a good idea.

No, there were no, we didn't have helmets. No, I mean, you said it in the first podcast. Yeah, I was gonna say helmets. Goggles are for wimps. Exactly. To all of our children listeners out there, you need to wear a helmet. Well, exactly. I never did, but wear your helmets. But, but when we were young, hamlets were for wimps.

I don't even know if they were invented. I don't think so. Probably not. No. That's probably why we are the way we are to this day. But yeah, we used to make all sorts of bike jumps. I remember one time the brunch Lees had their four-wheeler out and they were pulling us around on a rope, on a skateboard, you know, just like water skiing.

But you're on a skateboard being pulled behind this thing. I'm an athletic guy overall, I feel like, yeah, you are. But the first time on that thing, I was young. Sure, sure. And I was being pulled on the one of those little, little banana skateboards and one of the big wine ones or anything was one of those banana ones.

And I don't know which one of those brunch Lees was driving, but they took a corner. My guess. Probably John. Probably John. Yeah. Anyways, he takes a corner and I launch off of that thing and I am skidding across the road. The reason I remember this story is 'cause I still get made fun of to this day because apparently I yelled.

Mommy, mommy, mommy. As I ran home now, now I beg you, Jason. Who else am I supposed to yell for? Ken, kill Kenny. No, I'm yelling for my mom. Now, if I would've just yelled, I don't know one mother, mother, mother. Im running home like this is death and I, I need my mom. But who wouldn't want to? Jen is the nicest, sweetest lady.

She is the sweetest. She claims the first time she saw me riding a bike, I was standing on the seat. Wow. Coming down the road. So, I mean, we were, I'm not a gang of bikers or anything, but we, we used, we spent plenty of time on our bikes. That's how we got around. That's how we conquered the world. But you know, now my youngest.

Asks us to take him literally like three blocks in the car when he's got a perfectly good bike outside. I, I know. It's crazy to me. I know. Get on your dang bike. Yes. And go. We used to go too far. I mean, we were down at the country shopper when that's, you know, probably mile, mile and a half away, down off the hill.

I. It's not just like Mom can't yell out the window and make sure you come home. You left. Yeah. You were long out of your shop. Yeah. Long out of your shop, but there were a couple of times it would be okay riding down, but that ride back man. Oh yeah. Because we were up on kind of a hill and there were two ways to go down, and the one way was more of a, it was still steep, but it was curvy.

And on the last day of kindergarten, me and David Webb decided we wanted to ride our bikes. And so I asked my parents, they said, sure. What are you in? Fi? Six years old. So my dad put new grips on my team, Murray orange bike, and there were new pedals and I think he even got me a seat. Nice banana seat. No, no.

Although that could have, have been helpful at times. Yeah. Um, but anyways, we're, we're ready to go. So Webb is out in front and he's leading the trail. He's leading the trail. It's just me and him and starting to go down the curvy. Now the other road we will get into a minute. It was. Super steep. This one we took was the curvy one, and so we went down around the corner and he was gone.

Well, my little arms weren't quite able to handle, and so my handlebars start going back and forth. Oh, yes. Back and forth and I can't control 'em. Yeah. Now, why I didn't put the brakes on? I don't know, but I, it wig starts wobbling, wobbling, wobbling faster and faster, and it finally just, Cranks and I launch over the front of this thing.

No helmet. Yeah, yeah, no helmet. And I hit and I, and I just slide on the gravel. I am a mess at this point, like screaming everywhere. Just screaming Six probably. Mommy, mommy Web. Must have, I don't know how he saw me if he peeked over his shoulder, but he comes back. Yeah, we're halfway down this hill and he says, Well, we better keep riding to school.

So I'm a bloody mess. I'm a nothing but a nub. I stumble into class to Mrs. Purser's class. Bloody. Next thing I know, I'm back at home. I, I must have passed out at some point. I don't know. But I was back at home. You probably lost too much blood. Yeah, but you know, Webb was probably smart about that and that was the one time down.

Now there's another story. Now this one I'd like to preface by saying this is not a wise thing to do. For all those who, who have any idea of about where I lived in Providence. Just close your eyes, if you will, and, and imagine I got Ryan Dunkley with me and we gotta get down to his house. Okay, now that's down that hill, one of those two hills.

Now I'm graduated into a mountain bike and it's a little bit bigger bike. I'm probably. We're not 16 yet, so we didn't have a vehicle. I'm guessing 13. Okay. Okay. So we decide. I'm gonna give him a ride. We used to call it a pump back then. He gonna give you a pump. Yeah. You betcha. You betcha. Okay, so he's on the back and uh, on the seat.

And I am pedaling. He's standing. You're just standing. Yeah. Because we don't have a banana seat. That's where I'm thinking. That would've been nice. Yeah. We didn't have a big enough seat. So he's on the seat probably holding onto my, my waist. Sure. And I am pedaling this thing. Yeah. And we're gonna go. So we head out and we go the back way.

And I, we go down, we pass old Curtis Nixon's house. Okay. Um, he, he's probably out in the, in the front yard playing basketball, pass his house pass old man Lewis's house. Now Lewis, quick little story about Lewis. One time I was at scout camp and. I was in a tent with Colby Nixon. And Colby was convinced Louis's snoring was a bear.

We were, we were up in Yellowstone and they'd give us that whole speech about don't keep treats in your tent because there's bears. Yeah, well, Louis was snoring like you wouldn't believe. And Colby was convinced it was a bear. Not, no, it's just Louis. It's just old man. Lewis. Yeah, Lewis. So Kobe takes his treats out 'cause we did have treats in there.

Anyways. Past Lewis's house. Past the Southern's house. Get down to the corner now. Now we're at the Bo's house. Now the boss had a big dog named Sasquatch. Sasquatch, Bob. At that point, you can keep going straight. And that's the Curvy Hill. I reckoned on the kindergarten. Or you can go right now when you go right, you're coming up to Eck Hill.

I've always just called it Eck Hill. I don't know if it's really actually called Eck Hill. Probably after Randy Atkin. 'cause he would probably roll. I bet he was one of those street tufts that we would roll Roll pumpkins down Eck Hill at at Halloween. But that thing was super steep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and at the top of that, there was also a dog that would come after you.

So you've gotta be moving. You gotta be going. You gotta go. I thought I had brakes on that bike. Dunkley's on the backseat. Oh geez. I'm standing up. Double the weight. Yes. And this, this hill is, anybody who knows what I'm talking about knows. Eck Hill is steep. Yeah. You go down and then you come up just a little bit, almost like a rollercoaster.

And then you go back down to the, where there is a stop sign now. Yeah. So at this point we're at the top and we're starting to go, and I have no break. Well, I thought I had brakes and I start pulling 'em and they're not there. Nothing. We fly past Tyler Adams house wouldn't even have saw him if he saw him, if he was out there.

We get to down to the thing, we come back up, we start, start heading back down the little hill past Mindy Beth's house where there's a stop sign, but we are not stopping at that stop site. Oh geez. And there were cars coming the other way. And so at this point, we're just yelling out top of our lungs, look.

And we went through that intersection just. I don't even know what speed we were going at that point. Probably like Mach seven. Ryan's gotta be on the back with his feet out and his and his hands around my waist. I couldn't feel anything at that point. Yes, I am now thinking, how am I gonna stop this thing?

Yes, you only way you can do it is to start riding across grass. Yeah. Okay. I'm on the bar now. I'm sitting on the, that's the bar and I are one. It's not good, father. It's not good. Good. There's no differentiating between where the bar stops and I start uch. It's not comfortable. It's not ending well, no, it's not.

I'm now starting to go across this bumpy grass. B. Hey, it. That's exactly right. We, we make the corner somehow. Yeah. And then we have to make one more quarter to go down to Ryan's house. We finally make it there and we just fall to the grass. Yeah. In disbelief that we tried to do what we just did. Yeah. And how we lived through that.

I'll never know. Kids are not very smart. Jason, I don't know if this would be like a letter writing campaign to like the Providence City Council, but I would like to start a grassroots effort to change it from at hill to Simmons Hill. I like, I like where you're going on that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, let's, we, we, I think we could maybe look into that.

It's just as much dunkley's as it is mine. Uh, well, we can, we lived that together. We'll work with that name. We'll work with that name. I'd like, maybe we'll just change it up to like crotch Bar Hill or something. That's what it was for sure. That day. Crotch Bar Hill. It was not a good time. I learned a good lesson that day.

Don't ride down Eck Hill without breaks. The point being, buddy, is that we talked about goggles. Helmets, brakes. Mm-hmm. All for whistles. Yeah. Wimps. Wimps. I'm just kidding. No, don't say that. It's bad news, but, you know, you think about all these things and we've come a long way with our transportation. But, you know, another thing that we used to love to do as a kid, and, and I, and I do hope I, I say these things, but then I've turned into like a helicopter parent.

Yeah. Um, because we used to love to sit on the tailgate of the truck. Can you imagine now? Oh yeah. It's, it's not, I sometimes when we do go out to grass work, I let my girls do things like that, but, but if, if they're doing that, like I'm sitting right next to them. Right, right. Well, and that was never a thing.

And did you ever sit on the truck? Oh yeah. We would come home from, uh, baseball practice sitting on the back of a tailgate. Okay. It was open. Sure. Yeah, of course. So your legs are dangling and, and so we would've had to have been at least. When did they start leaving? Because you could wear metal spikes at a certain age.

Okay. And so I remember we were doing even before that. Sure. Um, but I specifically remember when we were wearing the metal spikes because you would try to drag your spikes on the ground. 'cause you could make sparks. Oh, okay. Coming outta the back of that thing. Now I, I can't imagine saying kids up in the back, I'll drop the tail and we were going up those hills.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. You better lean back when you're going up because you're gonna fall right out. And it also depends on like how tall you are. 'cause I was one of my favorite things to do. The only difference, of course, were in Grass Creek, we're dragging dirt roads and Oh my sweet mom, she gets so mad at.

And the only way that Sweet Betty could, I mean, she'd say, guys, don't drag your shoes, because we're dragging on dirt roads. Mm-hmm. Just tennis shoes. Of course. We'll rip those. I mean, we're just. Ripping those to shred on the dirt and the gravel roads. And of course I remember as a little guy, I would always, at least I'd beg my sister and my brother.

I'm like, when you're the little guy, like I'd say, wait, Lisa, please let me have the edge, you know, so that I can at least hold onto the chain on the tailgate. Yeah, that's good. Thinking on your part, you know, because I was just clinging to all, you know, because like my little short legs, like my little bum is like on the edge of the tailgates.

Yeah. Just to get my big toe. To the ground. It's not safe. No. I'm just barely leaving a dit. I remember one time we're heading up Red Hill. It's so funny when you're telling your story, you're going past the Samsons. Yeah. And the ies, I mean, you named more people, you passed more houses in a couple blocks than our in Olive Grass Street.

Yeah. So yeah, we haven't passed any houses, but I'm dragging Wade and Lisa. They, of course, they beat me to the side, so I'm in the middle. Is it gonna stop me from dragging? Of course not. So I'm precariously just sitting. Nothing to hold onto, but I'm dragging. I'm just dragging my big toe the best I can.

Dad hits a little bump. I just fall right out. You went out. Oh, right, right out the back. Right out the back. Flat on my tailbone. Ow. Again waiting. Lisa, love you. Shout out to you. How about, could they hold on you a little bit? Or how about they could have told dad to stop. Jason fell out. How far did they go?

Well, he went around the corner and, uh, I, I mean, I'm pretty sure that my imagination is taking over this part, but in my mind I can just see why. And Lisa kinda looking at me with a little bit of a smirk and like waving, see ya. But yeah, sorry, they got around the corner. We weren't going very far. I'm like, I just.

I mean, I knew where we were going, so I just started walking. That's no good. Yeah. One night we were, as stupid teenagers would, old Kevin Blotter was driving his pickup truck, and for some reason Scott Budge was in the back. Oh. And he was standing up. Okay. And Kevin hit a corner and budge was gone. Gone.

And he, I remember he had a San Francisco Giants baseball cap on. That thing was ripped to shreds. I think that thing might've saved his life that night. Really? Because he hit that first I, I believe. Okay. Yeah. And that thing was ripped right up. He got a new one. Okay. Well, fair enough. Yeah, he got a new one some at some point, and he's okay to this day.

There is something to be said though. I mean, we, I know it's not safe to ride in the back of trucks. I, I get the concept, but I don't know. There's something that we're losing from not being able to have those experiences because, uh, you know, I think I probably spent most of my childhood, if we went anywhere, As a family.

I mean, there's five of us in our family and we had a single cab pickup truck. Oh, that's comfortable. Yeah. Well, mom and dad in the front, kids in the back. That's cozy. That's what you did. You know, you just went, what about in the wintertime? Just didn't go anywhere. Well, we actually, I'm glad you brought that up.

'cause we had a, we actually had a big old, uh, it was a big old yellow car. Wish I remember what kind it was. Big old yellow boat. Yeah. If we went far. When I was a little guy, my favorite place to ride was just kind of tucked up in the back window. No seat belts there. Ah, listen, who needs a seat belt? Why would I need a seat belt?

No, you wouldn't. Not on a nice dirt road. Oh yeah. And if I wasn't in the back window, I'm sitting right on my dad's left knee. Yeah. Steering. Steering. Nice. Exactly. Because you started driving it. Soon as I could reach the pedals brother. Really? Maybe 10 years old. Yeah. Not us. No. That, that, that. I did take my dad's motorcycle a time or two without being asked or without asking, dumped her over one time.

Did you That was, that wasn't ideal. You must've cruised some motorcycles. Oh, yeah. Listen, I, uh, we again, we had motorbikes from the, I got my first motorbike at 10, I think, and maybe I've mentioned this before, but it was a Togo beautiful bike. Never heard of a tote goat. Oh. It's the best thing ever. I love it.

Sounds like a good bike. Just a real, just kind of a fun little cruiser. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Top speed of about 25. Got a little Briggs and Stratton motor on it. Polestar. So it basically was your lawnmower first, basically. Yeah. Your dad converted it into your motorcycle. Exactly. I mean, then you've got a lot of work outta me as well as having, you know, I take that back.

There's no way you had a lawn that you were mowing. Oh, you take that back? No, you, the cemetery doesn't have lawn. Why would your yard have Listen, beautiful, long, lush green. Really? Yeah, you bet. You bet, buddy. But after the tote goat, because I mean, I wasn't doing any tricks on that Toco, but after that, Toco to paid $25 for that thing.

My dad bought it from a buddy that he worked with. I remember he brought that thing home. It's so beautiful. But after that, I, I, that's what I started on. But, uh, when I got 12, I wanted some, a little bit more pep, a little bit more. It's important. Yeah, exactly. Little, a little faster. A little more dangerous.

Thank you. Yeah. Now I will say this, when we, did you get a leather jacket? Uh, at that time? Yeah. Wow. They protect you. They protect you. And of course you wear the zipper halfway down like the phone. Hey. And usually by about how old were you? 12. Well, then you had a hairy chest by then. Of course I did. Yeah, you did.

I've seen pictures. You had a mustache at nine. That's like a friend Craig, you know what I mean? Absolutely. You had a mustache at nine and it had a hairy chest by 12. Exactly. Just natural. It's just how it comes. And, um, I'll say this though, when we did go to motor bank, Dad had a pretty hard and fast roll.

You had to have a helmet. So we did wear helmets with motorbikes for all our listeners. I just rolled my eyes. Exactly. Cue the eye roll. I got my first, it was a Suzuki beautiful little bike orange. Yeah. Beautiful. I paid, uh, paid $125 for that thing. That's a steal. Oh. And it was a beautiful bike. I remember I bought it out of, uh, just bought it off of kind of classifieds, if you will, out of the, uh, burley Idaho, south Idaho press.

Okay. 70 miles away, 70 miles away, dirt road. And, uh, Paid 1 25 for that. We bought it on a weekend, brought it home, and I just, boy, I just love that bike. Well, Monday morning I wanted to ride it. I, I hope I don't ever retail stores. I don't think I have. We live down a, a little lane that I have to walk up every morning to catch the bus and I said, dad, I.

Can I please ride this to the top of the lane? Kiss the bus. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He's like, well, I don't really want you to do that because I don't want to just leave the bike at the top of the lane unattended. Right. For the three cars that perhaps maybe drive by. Makes sense. Exactly. He says, but yeah, for this first time, go ahead.

So I did that, left it park at the top of the lane. School's over the bus has dropped me off. Stephanie, great bus driver. She was wonderful. Just a gem. Uh, She pulls in, drops me off, getting ready to pull out, and all the school kids say, we wanna see you take off Jason. I'm like, yeah. You know what? Yeah. I'm crushing it.

They're like, Papa Wheely, Kimber, Papa Wheely. I'm like, yeah. Like I've been, had you ever popped a wheely at that point? Never. Never. You're gonna give it a shot now? Yeah. 'cause I had a to before and to You're not popping wheelies on to goats. Yeah. Well, I don't know. You can't even do it. I'm, can't it? I'm gonna believe you.

Yeah. So I get on that sucker app, one kick, and it, it was just starting off, I mean, Oh, just a beautiful, just per like a kitten. I'm like, and I parked it a little bit in a dip. Not the smartest, no. Were you on the downhill side of this dip? Yeah, it's kind of in the downhill side. You're gonna go down and then back up.

So they're all just chomping in the bit, watching me pop this wheelie. I'm like, And I just dumped the clutch. I just dumped the clutch, give it the juice, and that bike just came all the way up, up, up, up, up. And dumped me right off. Came right up over top. Luckily I rolled out of the way. So the whole bus was watching you?

The whole bus. Whole bus was just stopping and watching me. Oh my gosh. That bike came all the way up over top me. Thank goodness. Stephanie was an E M T as well as our bus driver. Wow. Well you kind of need to have both. Yeah. Multiple skills out there. Yeah. Said first driving a bus. Gotta be an E M T. I look over, of course Stephanie's just laughing.

She didn't laugh. She, he's gonna be alright. She'll be fine, he'll be fine. The whole bus is just laughing their heads off. I was fine. My pride was not fine. Yeah. How you gonna get over that? I mean, I was actually, I was, I felt like I was a little shooken up a little bit, but I mean, I wasn't gonna let that show, so I, I said, well, you have fun.

I meant to do that. You wanna see it again? I meant to do that. That's funny. Yeah. So we graduated in from our bikes and motorcycles into car. You drove 75 miles every week to high school and stayed in a different city for high school. Yeah, I sure did. Buddy or town? No way. It was. City. Yeah. Multi Idaho. Go Trojans after ride.

Yeah. Go Trojan. Exactly. So did you, I guess you'd had to get a little car. Did you make that drive? Yeah. Get drive. 1990. Uh, red Ford, four-door escort. Whew. Had those, those, that's a chick magnet. Oh, you better believe it. Particularly with those seat belts that were electronic, automatic. You remember those?

You better be careful 'cause it'll take you back. You still had to do the lap belt. Of course. I do remember that they remember they were kind of popular for a few years. Yeah. What was your first car? I mean, we had the Astro, the Chevy Astro minivan. Oh, that's which I didn't really drive like to school or anything, but it had back wheel drive.

You didn't have to go 75 miles to school? No, I didn't, but we did. It was a drive to school. It wasn't like right next door, so we went to. Matt Crisco, Mustangs. Mighty, mighty Mustangs. Everywhere we go, people seem to know who we are, so we would, uh, hit 'em high, hit him low, hit him with the truck guy. Is that what it was?

Yes, it was. Okay. Uh, that's terrible. I'm sorry. Okay. That's okay. But it's, it's still funny. Anyways, we would do. Donuts in the church parking lot in that astro van 'cause it was back wheel drive. Well, I don't know. Oh, of course. I think my dad knows to this day. One I drove for the most part was a Chevy citation, had a hatchback, it had AM radio five preset stations.

Volume control. Yeah, it was, it was a nice one speaker right in the front. And, uh, what more do you need? You don't, in fact, you could drive that car and pull the key out while you were driving. Really now why? I know that I don't know who's driving a car thinking. Hmm. I wonder if I can pull the key out.

What happens if I do this click? That's exactly what happens. Nothing, nothing. We're just driving. So yeah, it was a Chevy site. That thing was a little tank too. I mean, it was a good little car and what do you call it when you, when you put it into drive up on by the thing, you know, pull it down three on the tree maybe.

Something like that. Yeah. So, yeah. What's not the kids nowadays, all they know is they don't drive a stick shift by any means. Yeah. And this wasn't, this was an automatic. You would shift it up top by the steering wheel. Yeah. Still had to push the, it was a standard though, right? No, no, but see you're talking those.

I never even saw one of those. Okay. Yeah. My dad had a Ford Fairlane here push a clutch in three on the tree. Okay. So now this was, um, still the drive reverse. Everything was just right up on the little thing. Okay, gotcha. I did drive a, a Chevy spectrum. That was a stick shift as well. Okay. The problem with that one was, is the, the emergency brake was gone, and so if you get yourself on a hill Yeah.

And if there's a car right behind you, which this happened to me, okay. You've gotta be. Fast off the brake to the gas pull, the clutch. I just had to Weren't that clutch. Yeah. No, I couldn't, I was not quite that skilled enough, so I had to look out the window and tell the guy behind me, you know, lean back on you here for a second.

So I, I, I just kind of gray grabbed bumper. Yeah. Kissed his bumper. Let him hold me there. Well, I went for a little embarrassing, but, um, transportation. We've come a long way, my friend. Thanks again, folks, for listening to another episode of The Small Towns Podcast. We're pretty sure we've changed your life for the better.

If not, well, we'll try again next time.