“Literacy ain’t everything”

This is just one of several bits of wisdom adorning “Old Ruthie,” the 1929 Model A Ford. That extravagant vehicle didn’t just bring guffaws and snickers at the “World’s Largest County Fair.”

According to Hillbilly Bob, he and his rig have been on the road for 23 years, visiting 41 states and Canada. And they’ve piled on the miles —  6,000 miles in “low gear” meandering around fairgrounds across America. However, when on the highway, Old Ruthie travels inside an enclosed trailer; Bob has logged over 350,000 miles on his towing machine.

“I keep adding items to Ruthie,” he said. “This year here at the Clay County Fair I’ve added my three-bar spinner hub caps and my pom poms in the rear window. They’re made out of corn cobs, so what could be more appropriate here in the biggest corn state in the nation?”

“People see things like the old strap-on ice skates which my Dad used to strap to his boots when he wanted to see how fast the ice was,” he added.

One of the most popular questions Hillbilly Bob gets is, what year is Old Ruthie?

“Then they often ask what year am I,” Bob said with a chuckle. “So far Old Ruthie is a bit older but I think I’m catching up with the old gal. They like to know where I’m from. I tell them I live on the farm my great-great-grandfather settled in 1853. My grandkids are the seventh generation on that land.”

Bob travels alone these days because his bride of 47 years now prefers staying home with the grandchildren.

Born again

When he’s on the road he makes it a point to attend a Sunday morning church service regardless of where he is. And he dresses in the same Hillbilly Bob attire for his church visits.

“I know the Lord doesn’t much care about how I look on the outside,” he said. “He’s more concerned with what’s in my heart.”

Bob admits to being a lifelong church member because that’s the way it was growing up in a farming community with a small country church.

“But the light just never came on until I was 49 years old. My booking agent had booked me into a little fair in Pensacola, Fla. I had never been to an Assembly of God church but they were advertising their church every Wednesday night,” he said.

He decided to check it out, and believes this was no accident. 

“God sent me there because he needed to use a big two-by-four on me,” he said. “I got there late. I was driving a Freightliner and couldn’t find a place to park. There was no place to sit. The ushers had all sat down. I was ready to leave and went looking for the back door. Sitting in the very back row was an older guy with his cane draped over a chair just like he was saving that chair for me.”

So Hillbilly Bob sat down.

“I heard a message that night that I could be born again. I could have a spiritual birth. I could have a new life in Christ even though my sins could be as far as the East is from the West if I would invite Jesus Christ into my heart as my Lord and Savior,” he said. “But I was sitting in that back row and felt pretty safe.”

Pastor Steve Hill gave an altar call that night. He’s known for giving about a 20-minute call, said Bob.

“I sat there and didn’t move thinking everyone else can go up there but I’m too shy; I’m not going up. Suddenly the man sitting next to me, the man with the cane, said to me, ‘Sir, do you need forgiveness? Do you need to meet Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’ That’s the first in my life that I ever experienced the Holy Spirit.

“I went forward and gave my heart to Jesus Christ that night in Pensacola, Fla. And I could sense a difference. I was changed. I was a new creation in Christ,” he said.

Living his faith

Hillbilly Bob went back to Pensacola, Fla.

“Three days after that Wednesday night sermon I was at the Cracker Barrel restaurant paying my bill as I was leaving. I heard a voice behind me saying, ‘Hello Bob’. I turned around. It was the man with the cane,” he said. “He invited me to sit a bit with him in the rocking chairs out front of the Cracker Barrel restaurant. He had an old tattered Bible.

“He showed me some key verses that kind of got me going on my own life. If it hadn’t been for that man I could still be unsaved yet today.”

Hillbilly Bob went to his Freightliner and got a yellow legal pad to write down the man’s address — a post office box. The old man lived in his car, which carried everything he owned.

“The man that led me to Jesus lived in a Chevrolet Blazer. He gave me a revival tape. I listened to it all the way to my home in Dysart, Iowa,” he said. “I found a good Bible-believing church; I got into the Word and learned God’s plan for my life; my wife was on board with me and our lives are completely changed today. We now live a life of service helping people any way we can in Jesus’ name.”

The Clay County Fair was his last event for 2015. He had to go home and do some farming. His seed corn was already harvested and at the Pioneer processing facility. With 350 acres of corn and 350 acres of soybeans plus his Pioneer seed fields, Bob — otherwise known as Bob Hill — is in the ranks of professional farmers.

Hagen writes for The (Minnesota) Land.