Having been
raised around tractors all our lives, Tim and I learned to master them and were
driving them at a very early age. When we became a little older, we would play
around on the tractors, usually when no one was around. Until we turned 16 and
finally acquired our own cars, the tractors served as our motorized fun until
then. It was much more fun to grab a tractor and take it out to the fields or
woods to perform "free style" maneuvers than it was to do actual fieldwork,
which we did more than enough of as far as we were concerned. I guess you could
call our independent-of-work tractor antics as "joy riding". At my
age when I grab a tractor for non-fieldwork, I just ride around to check fences
or go back to the woods to sight see and have a solitary interlude. I have
always found that riding horses, motorcycles, or a tractor without pulling any
implements to be very relaxing. These events allow me to be "left to my
own devices" and clears my mind to think profound and deep thoughts.
Depending on how you look at it, being "left to my own devises" could
be either a good thing or a dangerous thing for humankind in general.
An example of
one of the "tractor fun" things Tim and I did was to tow a car hood
behind one the tractors with one of us riding in it. I will now explain how
this came to be. Around 1962 or 3, a family friend, Roger Waite, gave us an old
light blue 1954 Dodge that he was going to junk. Tim and I had all kinds of fun
driving that old Dodge around the farm. Since this was a few years before we
finally obtained our drivers licenses, we were able to drive a vehicle prior to
that time. It had a "straight 8" engine and was quite powerful. We
mostly ran up and down what we called "The Pony Express Trail" which
was a lane between our north fields. After flying around at high speed and
"peeling out" on the bare soil, over time, the old engine finally
blew up. The old Dodge sat around near the woods having been towed there by one
of us with a tractor and chain. A little while later one of us got an idea to
squeeze more fun from the disabled Dodge. We removed the hood and started
towing the hood around with a tractor and chain. We would take turns riding in
the hood like a giant sled while the tractor pulled us along. One of the really
fun things was to put the tractor in "road gear" and turn it suddenly,
which caused the hood sled to whip around at high speed as a water skier does
behind a fast moving boat. We usually used our Ford tractor for this since the
front wheels were spread widely apart and it had a low center of gravity, and
thus it was safer to turn quickly at high speeds. At least on a few occasions (Very few), we exercised some common
sense. One of the dirty tricks we used
to pull on each other was to deliberately tow the hood over rocks which
resulted in not only a bumpy ride, but would sting our posteriors as the thin
skinned hood went over the rocks. Our ride was completed when the hood got too
hot to ride in due to friction. We would signal the driver to stop as the heat
was building up to uncomfortable proportions. Of course, neither of us stopped
while driving the tractor and we had to roll off the hood at high speed with
our hot posteriors and legs. It never occurred to us at the time to insulate
the bottom of the hood with such materials as burlap feed bags or boards, which
would have prolonged our bailing out time. Eventually the front of the hood was
torn in half due to fast starts by "popping the clutch" at high RPM's
just to see if one of us riders would fall off backwards. Eventually, as the
disabled Dodge was sitting by our woods after all the windows were shattered
and the body was full of holes as a result of us doing target practice with our
rifles, it was loaded up and taken to the junk yard.
One of our
tractors was a John Deere "B" that had a hand clutch. We enjoyed
playing around on this because it had 6 gears and would really fly in 6th
gear, i.e. "road gear".
Another cool thing about this tractor was that we could do "wheelies"
with it. We would put it in 6th gear, rev up the engine to full
throttle, and quickly engage the hand clutch lever. The front wheels would go
up about 3 feet or so then crash back down with a loud KABam! It was a good thing that John
Deere clutches are tough or we would have eventually worn out the clutch and/or
broken the front wheels axle. I have been looking for a reasonably priced old
John Deere "B" to purchase just because I've always liked the way
they sound with the "Putt Putt" of the 2 large bore pistons and
cylinders. I know what you're thinking, "He
just wants to do wheelies again..." Actually, I don't for 2 reasons,
I'm too old and mature to do that now, and for the likely high price of the
tractor, I wouldn't want to take the chance of damaging it. I am just planning
to use it to slowly drive around the fields and back to the woods to relax.
However, I do think I should check the clutch at full throttle every now and
then to make sure it is not too worn and it is engaging tightly enough, and if
that causes a "wheelie", then it would be totally unintentional...
J
Looking back,
with all the dangerous things we used to do "joy riding" on our
tractors, it's a miracle we're still alive. For that matter, with all the
dangerous things we used to do in general, Tim and I certainly caused our
"Guardian Angels" to work a whole lot of overtime!!!!
