The very first time I backed a trailer (more than 3 feet) I was about 19 years old. My dad had asked my brother and me to make a run to the dump with my new-to-me 1979 Ford pickup. “No Sweat!” I thought.
Back when I was growing up, we lived on the outskirts of town, practically within spitting distance of the local landfill. We didn’t have weekly garbage service, we had a dump trailer. It was a little steel framed trailer, about 14 feet from tongue to tail, that my dad had rebuilt a few years earlier. The finished trailer included a removable rear gate and an electric lift, powered off the truck battery by a hot lead. Very little real work was required… excepting, of course, that you had to get the trailer positioned correctly.
Confidently I drove that little trailer up the sandy foothill roads to the Seaman’s Gulch landfill. I paid my dues at the gate and several sweaty guys dressed in safety gear pointed me to where I should go. We waited our turn, and then one of the men pointed me to a tight little spot between two other vehicles. “Uh-oh,” I thought, but with a bravado I didn’t feel, I whipped the truck around and started doing my thing. That was about when it all went wrong.
If you’ve ever backed a trailer, you know that the shorter the trailer, the more quickly and jerkily it reacts to the truck’s movements. You’ve probably also experienced bumpy and hilly conditions. You know, the kind that throw the trailer off your mark whenever you roll through another dip or bump or rock. Combine these two complications with a very inexperienced driver, a tight fit, and several people waiting in line behind me and you have trouble brewing.
I backed up, and the trailer promptly jacknifed. Taking a deep breath, I pulled forward again and turned my wheel the other way. It jacknifed that way. Hmm. I started to sweat just a little. This could be harder than I thought. A full five minutes later, I was still pulling forward, back, forward, back. My brother’s eyes were getting a little big, but wisely he said nothing. I had already laid down the law in my truck that he was NOT permitted to play his music (“That stuff is crap!”) and he was never, ever, EVER to attempt to sing (“You couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket with the lid on it!”). I was sure it was for his own good. I was a very loving sister.
Back to our tale… Oh yes, there I am, still pulling forward and back! One of the landfill attendants stepped up to my open window. “Honey, do you want me to back that for you?”
“No!” I growled through clenched teeth. By this time it was a vendetta. I was going to get that thing backed up if it blew my truck up! Just about then, steam started rising from under my hood. I realized that with the combination of the hot weather and the strain on the old engine without any road wind to cool the truck down, I’d boiled the radiator fluid. This was getting serious! My brother, a new driver himself, offered to back the trailer, but I snapped out something about him not being able to do any better. Like I said, I was a loving sister.
Finally, the trailer cooperated a little bit. One of the neighboring vehicles had since finished his dumping and had pulled out, and fortunately no one else dared to go for his spot. I shoved the trailer back as far as I thought I could get away with, knowing that if I missed my main target- you know, by just a little bit- the heavy equipment would scoop it up later anyway. Sweating and shaking, we clambered out of the truck and proceded to dump the trash with whatever dignity we had left. The jealous “oohs” and “Aaahs” that our power lift trailer usually evoked were conspicuously absent on this day.
Since that day, I’ve actually gotten pretty good at backing a trailer. You might say I’m a pro. But oh, my, that first experience is one that will hopefully keep me humble and patient when it’s my turn to teach my kids how to back a trailer.
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