AN OLD TIME "SENIOR MOMENT"

As I mentioned in a previous post, "The Hill East," back in the day, the only approach to the old Jack Dobson place, where we now live, was through his twin brother June’s property. The following is an excerpt from Grandma Ina’s letter of July 30, 1933, to her son Vance.

Vance at piano in Raymond

Earle [her older son] is good about taking us around, too. He took us to Troy the 9^th where we heard our bishop preach a good sermon and met several we used to know. I visited with Pa Shangle, our new presiding elder, who is moving back to his Milton home from Walla Walla. They asked after you, and Mrs. Shangle reminded me how she’d said you’d make a musician. Then she went on to say how someone had told her what a fine musician they had there in Raymond, and she said to this person, “Well, I know him. It’s Vance Dobson!”

Old Brother Kincaid has been assigned the church here at Gilbert, so Joe Gibson [apparently a young minister] brought him over last Wednesday and they stayed here with us overnight.

When they started off next a.m., Joe asked the old brother to drive the car through the gate at June’s. [Joe was undoubtedly opening and closing the gate.] He got his foot on the gas and it wouldn’t come off and as a consequence he drove through Curfman’s fence and back across the road, through June’s fence and back through Joe’s fence, circled a big tree and back across the road through June’s fence, knocked down June’s mailbox and back across the road through Joe’s fence the third time, and finally stopped. He said he turned the switch but no one seems to know whether he did or not. The car wasn’t hurt much though badly scratched and it took Joe Gibson till evening helping repair damages. Did you ever hear of a like accident! Kincaid owns and drives a Model T Ford but seemed paralyzed when he got started and was quite badly shocked by it. He is nearly 84 years old.

In his reply to this letter, apparently Vance reminded Ina, as sons will, of her experience in attempting to drive a car. In her letter of October 18, 1933, she responds:

Earle Dobson

Yes, it brings back memories – that car episode, but I claim I did well to not stop that old car that time and still not drive through the gate. You know the clutch bolt broke as Earle and I were coming up the grade. It also rained hard and cold, and I’d never driven, you might say, and my problem was to drive slowly enough to let him get the gate open and still not stop the car, but I laugh every time I think of it – how I sat there grim and rigid and saw Earle fumble with numb hands at June’s old chain wound around and snapped tightly in the hard old Dobson way! And I rolled relentlessly forward like a juggernaut, but of course I wouldn’t have driven through the gate. I meant to keep on going home till I knew I had to stop.