July 17, 2015 Fluency Blog Day 12

“Just an old John Deere tractor

New in 1954

Daddy got it right cause the engine was smoking
A couple of burnt valves and he had it going
He'd let me drive her when we haul off a load
Down a dirt strip where we'd dump trash off of Thigpen Road
I'd sit up in the seat and stretch my feet out to the pedels
Smiling like a hero who just received his medal “

I revised the words of the Alan Jackson song, Daddy Let Me Drive, because the first thing I ever drove when I was little was my Dad's John Deere tractor. I can remember sitting on his lap as he would let me pretend to steer when he would be plowing the garden, or hauling bales of hay to the horses. Boy I though I was big.

We used that old tractor for everything. My sisters and I would entertain ourselves on end by getting the saddle blankets and piling them on the ground, then we'd crawl up over the seat so we could get up on the back fender and jump off, again and again, while dad worked on something in this shop.

In the winter when we got a pretty deep snow, he had a hood off of an old pickup that he would chain to the back of that tractor for a sled, and he would drag us all over that five acres there at the house. Sometimes he would even venture up the hill and out to the road, dragging us behind on that makeshift sled.

When my folks divorced, my dad got to keep the farm, but mom got the five acres the house was on and the park that was attached to it. He got most of the farm equipment, but mom wound up with the old tractor and the horses, so as I got older, and my legs got longer, I would help mow hay on the 60 acres my mom had rented for the horses. Me and that old tractor got to be good friends.

Then the next few years it was pretty dry and we didn't really have enough to hay, and it was going to be cheaper just to buy it. So mom decided she would sell the old tractor and use the money for other things that we needed worse. It was still in really good shape; the paint was even still good, with all the decals. So I helped her wash and wax it, and we got it all tuned up good and then put it on Ebay. I can't remember what she actually got for it, but because it was an antique in such good shape, I remember she got a  really good price out of it. Some guy from Indiana bought it and sent her the money, saying he'd be down to get it in about three weeks after he got finished haying.

Three weeks came and went, and he never showed up, and he never showed up, and he never showed up...and we didn't hear anything from him, and he was not answering his phone Here sat our old tractor, paid for by someone that we could not get hold of. Finally about six or eight months later, after we'd about finally given up, we got a call. He'd had a heart attack and had been in and out of the hospital, but he was finally coming after it. 
I wasn't going to let anyone see, but I cried as they loaded it up and took off with my old John Deere, leaving me with only memories...but they were good memories which I still hold dear to this day....
                                "When Daddy Let Me Drive"