How much do you love your tractor?

A co-worker of mine answered an ad for a tractor for sale. It was for a Ford 600 with equipment for $2100. I was thinking that was a pretty good deal until he told me the story and then I wasn't sure that I would have liked to come up on it myself. The tractor belonged to an elderly gentleman and he was selling out his small farm that the city had enveloped and he no longer had need for the tractor. He told my friend he had purchased the tractor new in the early 60's and had had it longer than most of his children. He had a complete album of everything to do with the tractor including the original sales receipt. He had driven the tractor to the nearby Ford dealership and had it serviced every three months until the delaership closed in later years. He then had to haul it to another after that. When he started having to haul it he changed to every six months and had a receipt for every visit. My friend said it was amazing to go thru the album. He had the tractor rebuilt completely from front to back in the 80's. He had one last request for my friend the buyer and that was would it be alright if he, the owner, could load it on the trailer. Of course he agreed and the elderly man drove it around the yard a minute and then pulled it up on the trailer. He said he was busy chaining it down and he looked up and the old man was gone and his wife was crying. He asked her what was wrong and she said that she looked at the old man and he had tears running down his face and he told her that he hoped they enjoyed it and then turned and went into the house. It's my guess the old man was saying bye to more than just the tractor at that time. I'm kinda' glad it wasn't me that bought it.

I agree!!!!!!!

To worship an inanimate object like that only indicates the man has serious problems with the priorities in his life and his emotions and needs help big time. The man has a very warped sense of love, if that's what you call it. A tractor, car, or whatever mechanical contrivance is designed to help one accomplish tasks, and that is all. A tractor  is one item I would never consider as having a soul, and therefore needing love showered upon it. 

I have done tractors for some old gentlmen in the past that when they say the old girls all painted up looking like new that there eyes teared up and they looked at there tractors and gave them a pat on the hood and smiled and just looked proud ,it was worth the work that it took to make them look that way again 

He wasn't in love with the tractor, but the memories and the family it connected him to.

Perhaps he was saddened by that fact he had to admit he was no longer a farmer. Perhaps he was thinking of his kids sitting on his lap as he putted around the farm. Perhaps he was thinking of all the years the tractor kept his family fed. I would say anyone who cant relate to this, or at least understand it, "has a warped sense of love." 

I personally never spent as much time on the seat as this particular gentleman having been born in 1971 and the farm sold in 1989 but I surely understand his reaction. I also agree with others about the memories prompting that reaction more than just the iron itself. I possess those same feelings whenever I see the ones we have left and get to tinker with them on my visits. I think of all the trips on Dad's lap as he repeatedly bumped the XT's throttle to this little boy's screams of "Faster,Daddy,Faster". Nevermind the feeling that day when he stepped off the platform and basically told me I was ready to handle her on my own. He still owns the XT,WD45,and WD from the farm that he and grandpa owned. I learned how to drive on the WD/WD45 so they are special to me for that reason as well as their role during the history of the farm and our family. The XT will always be Dad's tractor as that is how I remember it. I plan to hold onto them long after Dad is gone and hope to restore them one day. Hopefully by the time I pass, I will have shared enough time on them with my own son that he may feel the same way. Even grandpa's Oliver 1750 he last operated before it passed on to me still holds a special spot in my memoirs. I regret not getting some pictures of it as the new buyer drove it off the farm back in 1989.

Allis Chalmers tractors are the machines that my Dad and Grandpa used to run two farms when I was a kid.That is how they made a living and provided for there familys and every time I look at a WD or CA I remember how great a childhood I had and how lucky I was that there were hard working people in my Life, I can still remember to this day riding on the toolbox with my Dad or Grandpa and thinking how great life is. It's not always the machine but the great memories!  

Well my two cents here,,,,I'm guilty of "falling in love" with machines.

Edited by LarryWC In - 22 Feb 2010 at 2:38pm