Mower delivers harrowing ride

Even the best laid plans can have faults.

When I got home from work today, roommate Travis Schafer and I decided to unload the mower from the back of my truck.

I backed into the ditch and jumped onto the mower to back it off my truck bed.

As soon as the back wheels left the tailgate, it got stuck because the wheels weren’t touching the ground enough.

So Travis had the idea to pull the truck forward and out from under the mower.

As it went forward, the mower did begin to slide off, but the deck got stuck.

Travis kept going forward, though, and the mower began to lean backwards.

I yelled for Travis to stop. He did, but the sudden stop in motion caused the mower to drop of the tailgate.

I ended up sitting in the mower’s seat flat on my back with the nose of the mower point straight up in the air. If it had been at night, I would have had a great view of the stars.

I was calm the entire decent. I wasn’t worried. I knew it would turn out OK. All that happened to me was a scraped elbow.

Once we got the mower back down on all four wheels, it started right up. I drove it into our shed for same keeping.

So what’s the lesson in all this? When unloading a mower, make sure you are backed into the ditch far enough that the mower can easily drive off the truck.

See, it sounds so simple, yet we couldn’t figure that out ahead of time. I wonder what that means about us . . .
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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About toddvogts 849 Articles
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of media at Sterling College in Kansas. Previously, he taught yearbook, newspaper, newsmagazine, and online journalism in various Kansas high schools, and he ran a weekly newspaper in rural Kansas. He continues to freelance as a professional journalist from time to time. Also, Vogts is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Journalism Education Association (JEA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others. He earned his Master Journalism Educator (MJE) certification from JEA in 2022. When he’s not teaching or writing, he runs his mobile disk jockey service and takes part in other entrepreneurial ventures. He can be reached at twitter.com/toddvogts or via his website at www.toddvogts.com.