I Once Witnessed a Farmer Hit a Kid With His Pickup Truck
I hadn't yet come into my power enough to ensure justice was done
I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on my experiences in a red rural community. I recently churned up an old memory.
It must have been about ‘95. I was maybe 20 years old. Age 18 to around 26 was a difficult period for me. I felt constantly on the verge of crumbling into dust.
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It's odd to reflect on the difficulty of those days. After all, I was young, I was fit, I had my whole life ahead of me.
As much as I'd longed for the end of high school, upon graduation I found myself ill equipped to take the next step. From a legal perspective, my 18th birthday granted me all sorts of privileges. At least, that was the theory.
In truth, turning 18 just brings out the predators. They want to lock you into a contract, they want to burden you with debt. In many cases, turning 18 offers only the illusion of freedom. What you actually get is the beginning of your life sentence.
I'd been working for a few years as a dump truck driver among other things. I operated a lot of machinery. It might not have been so bad if I'd had access to audiobooks, but I didn't. Instead, I sat with my thoughts. My thoughts spiraled down into darker and darker depths.
There were two four-way stops in my home town. This was before the stop light got put in. The post office was to my right. I’d just come to a halt.
With my foot still on the break, I glanced to the left and saw a pickup truck bump into a little kid who was riding his bike. The kid must have been around 10. He hit the ground with a clatter.
The pickup stopped.
The door opened and a man crawled out of the driver's seat. He looked to be about sixty. He had gray hair and one of those bellies that spilled out over his waist. He wore blue jeans and a checkered shirt. He wore a cowboy hat.
Farmers can be distinguished by their unique rolling gait. They're never in a hurry, not even when they hit a kid with their pickup truck.
If I saw something like that today, I'd pull over and rush to the vehicle. I'm 50 now. Experience has made me a different person.
I wouldn't say that I'm confident. I'd describe myself as constantly uncertain. But over the years I've developed an instinctive response to certain scenarios.
When I see kids in danger, I act.
But at 20, I’d been conditioned to defer. The patriarch claimed the mantle of authority for himself.
Always.
I hadn't grown into my power yet. I remained a seed in the husk of a decaying body. My thoughts weren't my own. My reactions weren't my own. I operated on a mechanism of expectation that had been installed through cruelty and indoctrination.
So, I didn't react.
But I watched.
I'd been trained to regard men like the farmer as the ultimate authority. They were the salt of the earth. I knew society demanded that I must thank them for their service.
“Thank you for feeding America,” I was supposed to say.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
I was supposed to revere them. The American farmer, a folk hero. They were held up as the irrefutable model of goodness and decency. They were the answer to the corruption of the city, and things like higher education and diversity.
That’s what we were taught.
Even then I suspected it was lies, but I hadn’t confidently connected the dots.
I sat there clutching the steering wheel so hard the stitching left an imprint on my fingers.
I'd never seen a famer admit he was at fault. The fake friendliness with which they faced the world had begun to enrage me. They only offered the promise of an outcome that would never arrive. The day of compensation is kicked down the road.
You go chasing on after it like a fool.
I sat watching and wondering how a farmer would react to having hit a kid with his car. How would he react when he was caught doing something wrong?
Would he say, “I’m sorry?”
I knew he wouldn’t.
The kid was up now. The farmer was in no hurry at all. This whole thing seemed to be an annoyance to him.
“What are you doing?” he growled at the kid.
“N-nothing, nothing,” said the kid.
I knew then the kid had given himself away. He’d succumbed to the conditioning. He’d given up his leverage.
He was of the population in our town that wasn't allowed to criticize, and now his assailant knew it.
The farmer glared. The kid started to scramble away.
I remember thinking that I should do something. I felt I needed to go over there and tell the farmer that he'd been at fault. For God's sake, he'd hit a kid with his car. It disgusted me that in the aftermath, he was further intimidating the injured party.
Just through his presence and his perception of his own entitled identity, he intimidated.
Intimidate first, ask questions later.
“Hey kid, you scratched my car!”
I think if he'd said that, I would have intervened. That would have been a bridge too far. Instead, there was a magnetic moment where all the pieces were bound together in the air, and they just hung there.
It was the kid who broke the thread. He got on his bike and pedaled away. The farmer inhaled, but said nothing. Slowly, he rolled back to his car.
It went through my mind that I should tell the farmer he owed that kid something. He'd hit him! Perhaps he'd damaged the bicycle.
“Hey! I witnessed the whole thing! Give that kid a $100! You are at fault!”
But I hadn't grown into that level of power yet. I was still a seed in a decaying body. The seed was being nourished through experience. I was still transforming into the person I'd become.
The kid went away.
The farmer went away.
I realized I'd been sitting at the stop sign this whole time. But there was no traffic behind me. There's no rush in a small town.
There's no justice.
I parked at the Post Office and sent my package. I thought about what I'd just seen. I didn't understand it, but I seethed. It made me angry, and I couldn't figure out why.
It would take me another decade to discard the decaying husk of my socially imposed identity. It would require a further decade to grow into a place where I could instinctively act in accordance with my authentic self.
I watched a farmer hit a kid with his pickup truck and act with indifference.
It taught me something about the lies I'd been told at school and on the rural streets that didn't have enough traffic to justify a stop light.
I obtained a piece of truth in that moment. It took me a long time to assemble a clear enough picture to claim ownership of my identity.
I'm still collecting.
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Amazing how far you have come in claiming your own power against lies and the abuse of power and knowing that now you would be able to stand up for the vulnerable- a kid, a woman, an immigrant, an elderly person, a black person, an Asian person, a Jew, anyone who suffers racism, a gay, trans or queer person, a sick person, a veteran, a mentally ill person, an abused person….and on and on. We all have to try to be brave and stand up for each other and not look the other way if we are able. You were just a kid at 18.
Thanks for sharing this story. It’s at the very root of how we can try our best to be brave and stand up against what’s happening to human rights at the hands of those who rule by intimidation and feel good by making others small because deep inside they are so tiny and small themselves. Even small gestures of human compassion, empathy and acceptance can help pave the way out of this collective mess that we are all living through. You are a voice for those who can’t speak for themselves. And it takes bravery. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a bright light in the dark.
"I was supposed to revere them. The American farmer, a folk hero."
Canada often displays similar reverence to the farmer- singer Murray McLachlan once had a popular hit with a song praising farmers for their efforts. However, as a lifelong urbanite, I and probably many others of my kind have more ambivalent feelings. We know that at least part of our food supply is due to their efforts, but, at the same time, we also know that their political ignorance and arrogance is the primary reason why right-wing politicians like Trump and his main political acolytes in Canada (Premiers Danielle Smith of Alberta and Scott Moe of Saskatchewan) are able to acquire and maintain power- they are their unwavering "base".