That's awesome, glad you had an opportunity to pass some joy along to your son. I remember myself as a kid, I grew up in a small town, most of the contractors knew who I was. My 10 speed got quite a few miles on it, I used to ride to sites that were relatively close and watch. I ran a 200 at the age of 11, I was hooked. The same guy that let me run that machine threw me in a couple more of his machines over the next couple years.
A couple years back, I was doing some orchard removal. It was a huge job, sometimes we would (I should say I would) work until way late at night. Of course, my dad would punk out and shut his machine down at about 8PM and call it a day, I worked weekends only for about 6 weeks while attending college during the week. I remember one Friday night my dad called me and said he was headed out to the site, a good 15 minute drive from town. He must've been out to dinner with the rest of the fam, but my youngest sister was with him when he showed up. She was 11 at the time, so we let her have a go on our 312. She dinked around a little, then I got up in the machine and had her put her hands on top of mine on the joysticks and see if she could keep up with the movements. My sister isn't much of a tomboy at all, but her and I are definately more alike than my other sister and myself. It was cool to see how someone who doesn't have an extreme interest in equipment have a somewhat excited reaction.
I like to share what I do with others, I have a lot of pride in what I do and feel like if I have the chance to promote the industry, I will. I guess since I'm young and still have the high school and college education system fresh in my mind, not a day goes by that I don't think about how screwed up society is getting to be. I think it's BS how the industry is percieved like we're all just "lever pullers", I'd like to think that running iron is a fairly respectable profession. Aside from running the machine productively and safely, which 90% of people who don't do this for a living probably couldn't do, there's a little more than meets the eye. I guess I feel like it's an obligation of mine to promote the industry whenever possible and if that means giving a kid a ride in my machine, by all means. I know how much that has meant to me in regards to how far I've progressed at a young age, I suppose if I hadn't had an interest at such a young age, who knows what I'd be doing now.
BTW, you should find your son a jr. sized hardhat, wouldn't that be rad?!
