Picking up rocks and wrecking the four wheeler

It was one of those times on the West Salem farm when we were picking up rocks.  It was just dad and I that day and we had the old 125, which just so happened to be the four wheeler I would get hit by a car a few years later, with the rock box on the back.  Now the rock box was a homemade wooden box that was fastened to the back rack with some electric fence wire.  When it was just dad and one of us, we had to ride on the front so when he spotted a rock that had to be picked up, we could jump of real quickly, get the rock, and throw it in the box. Once we had a full load, we had to go over to one of the corners of the field and dump the rocks or possible some place dad wanted to fill in some area of the driveway.

Anyhow, there was this spot where the two fields met where there was a pretty big drop off. When we were heading to dump the rocks, dad had me sit up in front of him right near the gas tank because he could not drive that fast with me on the front. When he went down that steep transition into the other field, the four-wheeler flipped over. I can still picture the image of when I looked up and the four-wheeler was on top of dad, I was underneath him. He had planted his arm and taken the full force of the four-wheeler to make sure I did not get hurt. I know this is something that as a parent, you just do to make sure that your kid did not get hurt, but I remember thinking dad was superman that day.

Shawn