All of us began as four-wheelers, and do you remember how challenging just steering that first vehicle was?

BETWEEN THE DITCHES

“Keep it between the ditches” is highway slang for “drive safely.” This column will devote itself to safe trucking in all forms, which means reports and tips on keeping your vehicle safe from repair rip-offs and rust, your money safe from taxes and predators and your welfare in general safe from trucking troubles. This is provided as a public service by Advance Business Capital, www.advancebcap.com

Cab Vocab

Slowly we’re learning more and more about life in the cab and one of the more enjoyable parts of the curriculum has been the trucking vocabulary. Some of it (see title of blog) is pretty self-evident, some less so. We first came across the phrase “keep it between the ditches” in a sign-off from writer Kevin Jones of TheTrucker.com, which led us to look for its origins.

We found the answer, not in the Oxford English Dictionary, but of all places, the website of the Jubilee Mennonite Church in Meridian, Mississippi. Elaine Maust, co-pastor with her husband Duane, writes regularly for the church’s newsletter. Her reminiscence was so lively and funny that we’re reprinting part of it here. (We hope it goes without saying that this blog doesn’t endorse any religion. Your faith is your own business. However, we take good advice and good conversation where we find it, whether that’s in the pews or a diner counter or the grease pit.)

Driving with a Shift and a Prayer

The following is extracted from a column for Pentecost by Elaine Maust, posted on the site of Jubilee Mennonite Church in May 2005.

When I was a little girl my family lived in Noxubee County, MS. We lived on a dirt road a lot like the one you drove on as you came into Pine Lake Camp. Actually the dirt road in front of our house was wider, a regular thoroughfare, two lane dirt road. But the gravel roads I took to school, to my baby-sitting job at the Weavers or to the fields where I drove our family's 40/20 John Deere tractor, all those roads were just one dirt lane.

On each side of those dirt roads were deep ditches. Designed perhaps to weed out the least cautious drivers among us. But they were also used to direct the water from the rains we had every spring and winter. The deep ditches beside the road became a pair of little creeks. That way the water wouldn't completely flood the roads. Unless of course, we had a real gully gusher. In which case the road turned into a muddy canal. But that's a different story.

I learned to drive on those gravel roads. It was great for my developing prayer life. “Dear God, don't let me wreck this car. Dear God, don't let me meet a car. (Or worse yet, another tractor!) Dear God, don't let me wind up in the ditch.”

Which is exactly what I did on at least one occasion – wind up in the ditch, that is. You see, when they dried out completely, these gravel roads developed a washboard effect. (bump, bump, bump, bump!) And if one drove the slightest bit too fast, which I did one day on my way to the Weavers, one could lose control of the vehicle completely. For me that meant driving our big brown bear of an old Buick right into the ditch. Lord have mercy!

My parents tried to help me to keep it between the ditches. I remember my mother teaching me to drive a standard shift in our old blue GMC pickup truck. It was on the one-lane dirt road on which I later landed in the ditch. Actually it was the one on which I would later drive into the ditch. It was not pretty, me learning to drive a standard over those washboard ridges. Hoping that I would not meet another pickup truck around every curve. I distinctly remember my mother sitting on the seat right beside me, at my elbow in the middle of the pickup giving commands. God bless her. While my little brother crouched on the floorboard of the passenger side pleading for his life.

All of this came back to me a few months ago. A designer that we work for at the cabinet shop called. I knew that her business had become completely overwhelming. “How's it going, Monica?” I asked. She said, “I'm just tryin' to keep it between the ditches.” I knew exactly what she was talking about. And I have a hunch she might have grown up in a place a little bit like the place I grew up in. “Keeping it between the ditches.”

Column Christening

We decided that this phrase is so evocative and idiomatically American that it should be the name of this column. Look for more unasked-for advice on how to keep your money, your truck, your business and your welfare in general between the ditches next month.