Everyone Needs a Scotch Now and Then

 I always think of Meek Hill with a little horror.  It was a lot steeper than the little Ozark Mt. hill shown here in Newton County.  One summer in my life when I was probably 11, Fleta and I would beg Momma to let us drive to get the mail which was over at the top of Meek hill.  I don't think Daddy was home or he probably would not have let us go, but we could talk Mom into almost anything.  Maybe it was a time when she thought a letter from Patsy might be in the box all the way from California.  I rode shot gun and Fleta drove. I remember it being an old car not a truck.  Of course all the rigs were standard shift.  Fleta was only 12 or 13 and she was smaller than I, but I am sure Momma said she had to drive and I was along to get out and get the mail. When we started up Meek hill, we knew we would have to shift down to first gear just before we got to the crest.  Most of the time, the car sputtered and died when Fleta down shifted.  To start it again, she had to hold one foot on the brake and the other on the clutch and then had to give it gas and all our cars were not easy to get to come alive.   Usually we flooded it and then it would not start and we would be hanging on the hill near a big ditch with Fleta pulling herself toward the steering wheel as she was too short to reach all the pedals with ease.  I would be clutching the raggedy seat with knuckles white as each attempt to start it rolled us closer to the ditch.  Fleta would  announce that I would need to find a scotch and put it behind the rear wheel so we would not roll off into oblivion.  It had to be a pretty big rock to keep us from rolling back.  Once I had accomplished this, we would get the rig going and make it up to the mail box, get the mail and head home.  Usually there was nothing in the old box.  But it was a summer adventure and we were brave.  Going home Fleta would come down Meek hill pretty fast so she could get up that littler Newberry hill safely.  It was not Newberry hill then as they did not live there.

Today Fleta went to work before daylight.  Hope she made it up Meek hill and was able to shift down at the crest without the truck dying and her rolling back because  her scotch was not with her.