Machinery and memories

That's a fully restored International Harvester Farmall Tractor.

The road to town today yielded some interesting sights and stirred a memory from youth.

OK, I dug everything i can dig, now get me down.

The first such sight was the excavator to the left. When first sighted it was alone atop that little mound of dirt about 10 feet or so above ground level with no other machinery around it and it looked like it had left itself stranded high above the surrounding territory with no way down. Unfortunately by the time we came to it on the way back, it had started filling trucks and didn't look quite so stranded, but you get the idea. The original caption was to be something like "OK, boss. where do I go from here?" or some such. It's a lesson I should have learned a long time ago: when you see a photograph, stop and take it; things probably aren't going to be the same when you get back there.

The second, that tractor in the bushes painted Fourth of July colors is one I have meant to photograph for years. It was to be part of a whole series of yard ornaments in the neighborhood here. At one time it was displayed prominently but has since been banished to the bushes. When I first saw it, I think it had steel wheels, but it now has rubber. It was one of several vehicles that owners seemed proud of enough to display in their yards. One even had a limousine, but that eventually disappeared and my funky project never got off the ground. This little tractor remained.

The Fourth of July tractor has seen better days.

The crown jewel of the day was that Farmall tractor, painted in the original distinctive bright red. That's where the memory rose. You see, I owned one of those as a boy. Oh, it wasn't the big real thing, but it was a Farmall tractor just the same. My cousins and their family lived on a farm cultivating crops and herding dairy cattle. I always looked forward to going there becasue we got to play in this exotic building called a barn. It was a fascinating place with its cattle and hay mow and we used to play hide and seek climbing among the bales on the second floor. You had to be careful not to fall through the hole in the floor where the hay was delivered to the floor below to be fed to the cattle. My hero at the time was my oldest cousin who at the age of 13 was allowed to drive the Fordson tractor as he joined the work force on the farm.

On the days when we couldn't play outside or go to the barn which was some distance from the house where they lived, we played indoors with a miniature Farmall tractor and a full set of operational implements that my cousins had for toys. Each machine was an exact replica of its original with amazing detail. These weren't tiny Hot Wheels; the tractor as I recall was probably 8 inches long and maybe 4 tall. The plow actually dug dirt (usually sand); the manure spreader spread manure; the cultivator cultivated. Together they were as realistic as a toy farm implement could be and I wanted a full set.

Unfortunately my parents couldn't see a suburban kid like me wanting anything to do with farms and discouraged me with every new plea.  But to me farms were exotic places with huge animals and tractors that signified a boy's growth into manhood the day he was allowed to first climb into that shaped steel seat, set the throttle by the lever on the steering column and head down the field determined to plow a straight row. Already one cousin was doing it, and I was the next oldest boy in the family. I might have been able to save enough from my meager allowance, but they weren't all that easy to find either. As I recall they were only sold by Farmall dealers, which weren't all that common in the normal shopping areas.

For what seemed to be an eternity, I had to settle for the occasional visits to drive my cousins' Farmall around their living room rather than my own around my bedroom at home, or better yet that Fordson my role model was driving regularly.

After what seemed like years of begging, one Christmas I unwrapped one, a genuine McCormick-Deering Farmall tractor. That was a brand of the International Harvester Company. Despite the fact I had advanced to an age where toys were becoming less interesting, I was thrilled, and, of course, I had to have some equipment with it. I was allowed one to start and I chose a manure spreader. To be honest at the time I don't think I knew what manure was or why it had to be spread but with all those parts spinning around when pulled by the tractor, it had the most action of any tools in the selection.  Later I recall obtaining a plow as well but it wasn't heavy enough to dig anything harder than sand.

AN ADDITION:  OK, I came across this today (5/29) and as one who has had
an interest in tractors all my life having a serious attack of tractor envy.  No 
caption with this at all, but OMG! 

In time I outgrew the toy, but the tractor remained for a long time on a display shelf and every time since leaving home for good that I come across the real thing it drags up a memory of what was probably the all-time favorite toy from my youth. American farming outgrew that tractor, too, as it was designed for small and medium sized farms which have all but disappeared and newer machinery designed for different specific tasks has replaced it.

I have no idea where my tractor is now; my nieces some day may come across it among the stuff my mother left behind and now that the next generation of our family is having children, perhaps another child will experience the same thrill I did driving my bright red Farmall tractor. Even better if someone could find it and send it along so I could give it to my own grandson, that would be wonderful.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Farmall tractors.