August 18, 2025 - I always considered myself to be a good driver. I have driven ambulances, hearses, and police cars and have never had a mishap. Only one traffic ticket is on my record from 1967 (it was my wife’s fault, but that’s another story) in Houston, Texas. I have taken driver training courses and even a police pursuit course while in Colorado. However, with all that background and experience there is one thing I cannot do – back up a trailer.
In 1979 when my daughter was married in Kansas City, it became the bride’s parents’ responsibility to return all the rented items required of a formal wedding. The couple had a large number of wedding gifts that had to be transported from the church in Kansas City to their apartment in Liberty, a long drive. My 1974 Ford Galaxy 500 would not accommodate all the nicely wrapped gifts, so I had a brainstorm which was to rent a U-Haul trailer so all could be delivered in one trip.
I rented the smallest trailer available, hooked it to my Ford and drove it to the church. Thankfully my teen aged son was with me and he contributed a lot of “grunt work” on this project. He had been into weight lifting since junior high and was a rather strong young man. He was destined to contribute even further later on.
At last the church was cleaned to its original status, all rented items returned, and now it was time to make our trek to Liberty to leave the gifts in the new apartment. I had to drive the car to the rear of the apartment complex in order to unload the U-Haul. That’s where the problem arose. I needed to back the trailer up to the building, but try as I might; I could not get the trailer to go where I wanted it to. I knew the basics of turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction from where the trailer is to go, but things were not working for me.
Finally, my son, who was directing me, said, “Dad, stop the car and I will move the trailer for you.” To my surprise, Doug picked up the rear of the trailer and swung it around to the position I needed it to be. I have no idea how heavy the trailer was, but it was heavy. Now my grown son can regularly dead-lift over 500 pounds, so this event was just a practice session for him.
Our mission completed, I had no difficulty in driving the trailer back to the rental store since I did not need to back it up. To this day I shun hitching up a trailer to my vehicle because of my inability to back up. Beside that, my son in no longer with me do so my heavy lifting. And, now I am just too old to learn something new.
