I’ve always loved tractors, since I was a kid. That was a very long time ago. Like many kids, I had a metal pedal tractor, and it took me everywhere a four-year-old could go.
Today, tractors are built everywhere. If you want one built in the US, your choices are limited. While I still had kids at home, I ventured to buy an old Allis-Chalmers WD, but like most things I’ve bought for myself, I had to sell it. Parting was such sweet sorrow
.Then my father passed away, and I at last laid hands on his forty-year-old L275 Kubota tractor, with its low hours and all the attachments. That machine did everything. I planted sixty large trees with it. I mowed the field with it. I moved tons of brush, wood and stumps with it; I chipped the small stuff. I graded my lane with it and moved, literally, at least one hundred tons of soil and gravel with it. If there was anything to move from here to there, the tractor was always the first, go-to choice. Turn the key backward to light up the diesel glowplugs, then start, with a single puff of dark smoke. Warm it up and feel the power, as it climbs its way out of the tractor shed.
Alas, I felt I couldn’t afford to keep it. Its value, approaching ten grand, forced me to finally part with it. It’s the economy, stupid. The man who bought it was like a big happy kid, to find it.
I reasoned, I’ve lived most of my life without a tractor, and look at all I’ve gotten done with it…but that work is over. As one ages, the need seems to pale. Or something.
But, do I ever miss it.
So now, if I need to move firewood, I use a wheelbarrow. I move my trash to a distant dumpster the same way. I hadn’t really considered, the older I get, the more I actually do need it. I can’t quite lift as much, or as high as I used to.
This could just be a temporary setback, of course. I take supplements and I am back to work, and the heightened activity is doing me good. Maybe someday, I’ll even replace it. Ha. Maybe pigs will fly.
When I load the wheelbarrow, I simply remind myself. This is really okay. Why?
My grandparents had one of those pedal tractors too, and about twice a year I would be lucky enough to share time on it with cousins. I also remember the thrill of driving my dad's little john deere back and forth across the yard to till a space for my mom's garden.
The tractor really is an excellent metaphor for manhood: useful, tough, adaptable, and going out of style.
I guess I am too!😂
My grandparents had one of those pedal tractors too, and about twice a year I would be lucky enough to share time on it with cousins. I also remember the thrill of driving my dad's little john deere back and forth across the yard to till a space for my mom's garden.
The tractor really is an excellent metaphor for manhood: useful, tough, adaptable, and going out of style.