Muddy Buddies

A Harley-Davidson motorcycle might be the highest art form ever devised by mankind. Its engine’s deep-throated, all-American, guts-and-glory roar brings tears to my eyes.

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I’ve always loved the sound of mechanical power. Many a day, for long spells, I’ve parked on dirt roads separating Mississippi Delta fields, and let myself be hypnotized by the steady, staccato rhythm of diesel engines, walking center pivot irrigation systems in huge circles, pumping homemade rain to thirsty cotton plants. Once this love of machines and the music they make got me in a ton of teenage trouble. A drainage canal bordered Dad’s farm, and occasionally the county’s crane dredged it of silt and debris. The old Bucyrus dragline clanked clumsily on flat tracks, its open cab offering the driver no creature comforts. But when its huge engine swiveled the machine while lifting and lowering the bucket, it snored as effortlessly and contentedly as a coon dog asleep under a shade tree after an all-night hunt.

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We barefoot boys watched as the bucket dumped reeking sludge, eels, turtles, garfish, and other drainage canal denizens on the bank. One day as Mr. Doolittle, the county’s crane operator, readied the machine for a day’s work, I asked to sit in the cab and watch him operate it. He agreed, even offering to show me how to crank the engine and swing the bucket. When a spell of heavy rains set in and filled the canal to its banks, Mr. Doolittle’s work was halted, setting the stage for much muddy mischief. “That crane is way out in the middle of nowhere,” I said to my eager pals. “Nobody will know if we play on it. Shoot, I’ll even show y’all how to crank it.” Crank I did, and pushed levers and pedals until I could swing the bucket in an arc over the water. We took turns climbing in and out of the cab, riding the bucket over the canal, and flinging ourselves outward, kicking and screaming our way down to the water. Soon we had coated the levers, pedals, seat and cab with mud. Our errant adolescent adventure halted abruptly when the county pickup pulled up behind the crane. Mr. Doolittle’s face was livid, and a face even more livid belonged to the man next to him: Dad. Mr. Doolittle killed the crane’s engine, and Dad thumbed us toward the back of the pickup. We muddy, miserable muskrats huddled hopelessly, watching two angry men’s heads in the pickup cab nodding vigorously while discussing our impending punishment. “Boys, Mr. Doolittle is bringing the crane to the farm shop,” Dad growled. “Here are brushes and buckets. Y’all will spit shine that machine from one end to the other, you’ll scrub his pickup, and then — and then! — I’m going to belt your butts to frazzles while Mr. Doolittle watches.” And … that’s exactly what happened. I still love the roar of powerful engines, but I guarantee y’all this: Being a crane operator is no longer a dream of us muddy buddies.

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