If time could stand still

   / If time could stand still #11  
Farmwithjunk said:
Everyone has that moment in time where they would return to if it were possible. That defining moment in ones life. Everyone who's hooked on tractorin' has that moment too. That split second when you realized THIS IS FOR ME!
...

Some people had to wait until later in life to experience their first "Kodak moment" on a tractor. WHen was yours?

A neat and touching story. :) Wish I had something similar to offer, but I was little more than a toddler when Dad gave up farming the piney woods of North Louisiana and took up carpentry to support his family. I suppose any analogous story of mine would involve hammers, nails, and hand saws. I have his favorite saw, an old, rehandled, Disston D-7, in a display case I built entirely with hand tools in his honor. I taught myself to make hand-cut dovetails for that project. That was the one saw he would never let me use during his life, but the blade is much narrower from the many times he resharpened it. It's still one of the best cutting hand saws I've ever seen and would be my favorite had I not felt it deserved an honorable retirement.

My older brothers have many more memories of the farm, but the few I retain contain no tractors. All our "prime movers" had 4 legs and long tails instead of wheels and exhaust stacks, so my memories are more of horse collars, harnesses and singletrees. The remembered aroma doesn't involve diesel fumes, either. Of course we didn't have to worry about fuel "jelling" in the winter, greasing zerk fittings, or changing oil, but proper maintenance was still something that couldn't be ignored. And, rather than letting it blow in the wind, a use could be found for the "exhaust". I'm sure there were times my brothers would have preferred a wind-borne solution.

My first (and, so far, only) tractor was purchased after I bought a few acres outside of town and retired. Thought it would come in handy around the place, and it has - very much so. But I doubt that I'll ever have the emotional attachment to the machinery (or the land) that many of you have, and I suspect that I'm the poorer for it.

Thanks for the story!
 
   / If time could stand still #12  
Farm,

Interesting thread for sure.

For me, growing up in the suburbs of St.Louis Mo. there were no early moments until jr. high. There a teacher had a 360 acre family farm with his brother about 100 miles away in the country. He would take students that were too dumb to know any better there on the weekends to help with bailing hay. Yup, I was one of them with a buddy. We would be on the wagon and take the bails off the square bailer and stack them up. First few times either he or his brother would be back there with us showing us what to do. Pretty much a all day affair from light till dark. Learned about 4 full meals a day. Breakfast (05:00), lunch (10:30), dinner (2pm) and supper (after the last bail was in the barn). Also learned that the jobs not done just because you're tired! Yep, I always wanted to be the one driving the tractor. It was 640 ford (I think!).

Oh, we were well rewarded. Fishing in a creek, swimming in ponds, hunting doves, going to county fairs and tractor pulls.

Nowadays, I can't imaging the same thing happening. First thought would be of what kind of pervert the teacher was. Sad how our world had changed...

jb
 

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