Remember the first time you asked...

"Dad, when do I get to drive???"

wrong color but I can remember the feeling...



Edited by Rick of HopeIN - 07 Sep 2010 at 8:37pm

Andrew, I was told that. I demonstrated that I had no problem pushing the clutch pedal, but I was standing with my left foot on the clutch, my right foot on the left final, and had a death grip on the steering column.LOL! That quickly changed to "when you can sit on the seat and push the clutch pedal and the brakes at the same time". Didn't take too long. I was discing when I was 8, I think. Took a couple of years to graduate to cultivating, and had to get held back from bush-hogging after I ran through the pasture fence.

I do remember a lot of seat time on a C before I could actually drive it myself. Got to do a little steering though.

i remember asking that...first tractor i ever drove was dads old Gibson...still has it

Yup, the answer I got was the same one Andrew got. Of course the first time I did drive it was a very spontaneous situation that the tractor had to be moved. I was a little nervous!

The first time I got to bale with the Ferguson Baler I worried so much about keeping the pickup on the winrow that I never noticed the knotters broke and I had half a mile of hay waffers.

I remember sitting on the tool box of Dad's 45 and reaching out to touch the tire when going down the road. Dad would scold me if he caught me doing that. I was no more than 4 cause that was at the old place (as we called it). I first drove solo on his WD when I was 8 or 9 pulling a 5 section drag. Wasn't until I was 13, that was a big year, that I graduated from discing and chisel plowing to cultivating and combining. When I first ran the E combine at 13 it was on an oat field and it looked so pretty a woman pulled up to take photos that she said she would enter at the county fair. Never got her name but when the fair arrived there was a nice big picture of me in that E on a 30 acre field of oats. She got a blue ribbon. Should have written her name down. It would be the only photo of me as a youngster driving anything in the field. 

At age 10, I wanted to drive the neighbors Massey 255. Dad wouldn't let me do it on my own and it's a good thing he didn't! I let off the clutch, front wheels shot up in the air, and I was headed for the light pole that held our transformer. I wasn't heavy enough to push the clutch back down, especially while riding a wheelie! Dad saved the day by getting it under control.

Jim Lindemood wrote: Those are really great photos -- interesting stories too. Kids don't seem to start as early today as they used to --- many things are different today.

yea tractors went from 40 hp to 300hp!

Ah, the manure wagon. Ol Lady Graves farm hand was named Jack Stone. I say his name, because I will never forget that vile, toothless old man.

On a day when we had birthed three calves, he "allowed" me to drive the Oliver and manure wagon out to the field and spread it.

I had rehearsed for this day for months, and it went flawless,

I got to the field, lined her up, engaged the ground drive - and I was off. Moments later, the thing was flinging dung and afterbirth all over me...

I bet that S O B is STILL laughing at me...

Love those photos! My first time was on my Uncle Clair's TO20 Fergie going forward & backward running the Jackson Fork (hay fork) at about age eight. That next summer Grandpa let me drive the Fergie 35 Diesel pulling two hay racks while he and my uncles loaded baled hay from the field. I managed to drop a wheel on the second wagon off the end of a small culvert spilling the load, Duke the dog, and my Uncle Dean!

actually tractors are getting easier for my generation probably...all the computer technology, it's like playing a video game.

We had a Case VA that we used to pull a New Holland square baler, which had it's own Wisconsin 2 cylinder on it. I was about 6 when one of my friends phoned and asked if I could come over to play, but We needed to get some hay up, so instead, out to the field, following the windrow.  Dad was stooking bales behind, and all went well.  Then on another occasion,l I stalled the Case going up a steep incline.  Of course I pushed in the clutch, as that was the "brakes" to me, and the whole outfit started to descend.  Dad got to me quick enough not to cause any real damage.