Mr. Carter's Egg Farm, Motocross racing and Seeing a man about a dog

Mr. CARTER’S EGG FARM

 Motocross Racing

 &

Seeing a man about a Dog

Mr. Carter our neighbor owned an egg farm, right next door to where I lived during my teen years in Northern California.  Every so often, he needed help cleaning out the chicken poop off the Barn floor.  Yep there I was shoveling chicken poop into a wheel barrel and it was the heaviest, slimiest, and smelliest stuff on earth. I had to push this wheel barrel full of chicken poop down the narrow rows of chicken coops to outside and dump it into a much bigger slimiest, smelliest pile of oozing poop this side of the continent.  Believe me when I say it was the worst smell ever and imagine living next door to that let alone shoveling it?  Mr. Carter gave me $20.00 dollars to clean one side of each row of chicken POOP! And cleaning out a half row took me… all day.  

Getting the smell off me took 2 days and lots of showers. I would try to time it where the third day was a Friday, so my girlfriend would be ok with riding in the same vehicle as me.

 Egg laying chickens… are well?... chickens, but I felt sad for them because, they were in a cage 24/7 and all they did was poop and lay one or two eggs in the morning, oh and eat so they could poop the rest of the day.

Mr. and Mrs. Carter were the nicest people you ever wanted to meet.  I believe they said they were originally from West Virginia?  As their accent sounded like they were from those parts as well as their nice hospitality.  I can remember some of the words he spoke like it were just yesterday. He would say things like, DAD GUMIT! And “That’s just plain Dad-Gum stupid ta do something like gat” and oh ya whenever he really, really got upset about something he would say, “Shit Fire and save the matches” in such a huff that I knew something was really bothering him. Most of the time if he was upset, it was about something his son did or didn’t do. You see he didn’t like to shovel chicken poop and loved to go partying on the weekends. One weekend his son wreck the car his father bought him; and how was I suppose to know that he told his dad he left his car at a friend’s house overnight and well when I asked how his son was doing the day after his car accident Mr. Carter gave me this one eye lowered look, and I knew right away that something was up?  “STEVEN!  Get yur butt over here nouw boy!”

The truth never fails to surface sooner or later, and in this case it was way ahead of schedule via a little unbeknownst help from Umwa.

 Mrs. Carter would serve up the best Dinner / Breakfast most people only hear about every morning and I had the pleasure of getting invited every now and then. You see, Breakfast was the biggest meal of the day because you worked from sun-up to sundown and you needed the big feast in the morning to make it through the longest part of the day. I think their secret though was the sugar in their ice tea? They put four spoons of sugar per glass, which was about 3-1/2 spoonfuls way too much for me?

Hey?  Looky here, that’s me in the picture serving up some fertilizer from Carter’s Egg Farm, mighty fine stuff thar yes indeed.  

My Father wrote on the back of this picture:

“That’s Tommy- poop don’t bother him”

Mr. Carter needed help cutting down trees on acreage he owned up in the hills near Georgetown above Cool, (That’s an actual name of a town, pretty Cool huh?) Anyways the road to Cool wasn’t. (Made me Nauseous every time) 

(This is where I explain the correlation of Mr. Carter’s Egg Farm to the highlight of my Motocross racing career)

 He needed the help and I needed the money to go Motocross racing every Sunday.  So here I am using the same wheel barrel that I used to haul Chicken Sh---er poop in, but now hauling logs from the fallen trees, up the side of the mountain, and loading into the truck.   I was now also building up some serious muscle tone and strength I never knew existed in my 125lbs average size but now very stout body. 

TIMBER!  Another tree falls and lands with a big thud as Mr. Carter shuts off his Chain saw. I walk over to where he’s at and Mr. Carter tells me he needs to go see a man about a dog.  I say “what? You’re getting another dog? What’s wrong with the one you have? Mr. Carter repeats what he just said once again but with a different softer tone and a sorta funny expression on his face.

Like - (Boy… Don’t yeuw know wu-aht I’m a-talkin bout?)

Then I asked him, “So what kind of a dog is it?”  Mr. Carter is looking at me with this blank stare now, and then says indomitably, Uh I’m going behind that tree over yonder there to pull my britches down and take a crap…

Oooohhhh-kaaay… I get it now?  Hey I don’t think we brought any toilet paper? Are ya gonna use a leaf or sumpin?

Nauw I got a roll right here in my jacket pocket,

 Alright! Way to go Mr. Cartier!

(You see, saying that you got to go see a man about a dog is the West Virginian polite way of saying it.) “Hey watch out for Bears!”- Mr. Carter” I yell as he walks away.

So about 3 weeks of cutting down trees and hauling logs up the side of a hill, and getting some well toned up muscles as well, I was ready to go Motocross Racin! I had made enough money to fix the RM 125 and hit the track.

Guess WHAT? -I WON! My Division two weekends in a row!  4 straight wins,  in the Novice division. 

Picture below is of the actual 1st Moto win! Checkered flag and ALL!

This is the Actual Prairie City Hangtown MX track back in 1977

 

 

 

1981 photos of me practicing

 

Sacramento Raceway Arena 1977

I would place 1^st -1^st - 2nd or sometimes 3rd -1^st -1^st, for the overall win each night, but whose bragging?  Also that type of race isn’t the same as the Sunday Motocross racing.

Unfortunately, or maybe not? (Because it’s a dangerous sport) I had to quit because of finances, starting a new career, oh and getting married and oh I don’t know? Having your wife tell you that she’s pregnant doesn’t help much either!

I remember those Motocross racing days vividly well as they were probably the best times in my life, the late 70’s early 80’s. Winning at something you love doing was peachy keen TOO!

 

Ahhhhh… the early days of my short lived Moto Cross Career.

1976

1976-77?

Prairie City OHV 1977

Gene's Suzuki Jersey

My Twin Brother Todd was always there to help and cheer me on! He was a big help.

We both shared with yellow flag corner work at the track to earn money for gas to get back home

or to get something to eat in the early years at the age of 17. We pretty much had to support ourselves growing up and I had a passion to race back then and did everything I could to continue racing as long as I could afford to. THANKS BRO!

My Brother Todd on the left with Brad Lackey (MX WORLD CHAMPION! 1987)

and a friend of Brads on the right

 JODY    TODD   TOM (the cool one in shades)- Uncle Tink (Starter)

AND THIS IS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN!

Mr. Carter sold the Egg Farm that year and moved away, and then he got it back and moved back in and built a new house at the other end of the acreage and then sold the Egg farm again and had to help the new owner so much that he just as well bought it back again.  Anyways Mr. Carter eventually moved away and I never saw him again after that.  I often tell people about the time he went to go see a man about a dog.  I will never forget how strong I got from working up in the hills cutting down pine trees. I should have wrote a how-to training Manual for Motocross, I would have made enough to race a few more months or maybe more?  

 

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