My first job was feeding our 17 barn cats at 5 years old. In addition I helped pick our 1acre garden with my mother and sisters. Cleaned out horse stalls, and took out the trash and burned it. Yes at 5-6 years old.

By 7-8 years old, I was on horseback with the adults and riding fence line for cattle, which meant doing an assessment of their health as I pushed them back to the herd. It required a young kid to learn to be observant. I was naturally.

This also required maneuvering deep bayou bank ravines which could be fraught with cottonmouth snakes, nutria, wild hogs or alligators or a pasture that took a day to cover by yourself at our ranch in the central states.

Expected to accomplish as a grown man would. Age was never allowed as an excuse to not do something well or as expected.

Later my favorite early job was driving the hay truck at age 12. I used to pop the clutch and knock my sister out of the backend and put her in the path of a herd of cattle coming up to eat.

This also could dump her into a cow patty pile if I was lucky.

If it did, the fight was on! 🤭

She pulled me out of the truck once by my hair before I could put it in park. It continued to roll down the hill and we caught it just before it hit the barbed wire fence and tore it down. 😂

We were wild back then, or maybe always. But it was fun. I’d been driving on a major highway for 3 years before I signed up for our high school drivers ed course for the insurance deduction it provided for my parents.

Our local football coach was the summer drivers ed teacher. He knew my family well.

He’d drive all the way out to our place on a summer morning and get me so I could complete my driving time.

The first day he got in the passenger side, opened up a newspaper, picked up his coffee and settled in to read the paper cover to cover.

I looked at the paper he was behind and said, aren’t you going to watch me? Or teach me?

He folded the corner of the newspaper just enough to look me in the eye and said, “How old were you when you learned to drive that big old standard hay truck?” I said, 12. He nodded and said, “you already know more than most adults about driving, so let’s go and don’t crash into anything.” I laughed and started the car. He was right. All the kids in our family were much better and responsible, yet defensive drivers than 90 % of adults.

Anyway, this meme jogged a lot of really cool memories today and I felt like sharing them with you.

Hope you enjoy my stories . 🙌🏻