ODE TO A TRACTOR

A TRIBUTE FROM THE HEART...
**********************************

Way back in olden times...
    (Golden Times too)
In the forties, seems like yesterday---
    You could have driven by our
section of land, near Ranchvale...
    and you would have seen
a big Orange Case Tractor
    parked there...under the
old apple tree...next to the windmill.

This was not a "cute" little medium-
    size tractor with the small
front wheels close together, like
    a bright red Farmall...or
a bright green John Deere---no.
    This big orange Case tractor 
was a serious, no-nonsense
    land-eater with big widely-set
front tires, and I reckon it was 
     a bit "squatty-looking!"

Now that tractor knew how to work!
    Matter-of-fact, work was all
it knew!
    It was a piece of engineering
largely-unappreciated 
    by the world, as it plowed our
land...and helped produce 
    our wheat.

If you had driven by our place
    one day back in the forties,
and were looking at that
    orange Case behemoth...
You would not have seen
    a tractor
With an enclosed cab...like today;
    Air conditioned, maybe with
a radiio....or stereo...or cushy seat...
    or room for a little ice chest...
Who knows, what-all, innovations
    have been made?!

O, how nice it would have been, to 
    be riding in a cool (out-of-the-sun-on-
a-ninety-six-degree day) cab
    with air-conditioning---
No dust rising and bothering YOU,
    even tho' it was following the 
tractor, along with a host of gnats, 
    bugs, flies---of every
species, which without the cab 
    would have been doing maneuvers
in the driver's face...and nose!

(And to think of all the fine dust
    the driver "misses out on" today,
and thus no allergies or hay fever.)

Let's imagine: nowadays you'd be riding
    along, comfortably in the cool cab,
and you'd reach behind you and
    grab a diet Dr. Pepper from your
ice chest, pop it open and....put on
    your stereo some Vivaldi, or
maybe Bolero...or some Sousa!

Why, I'd even play the MoTab Choir or
    Robert Shaw doing Stephen Foster!

Oops, watch it Mil---if you let your
      one-way plow wheel get out of
the rut (remember when you 
   doze off), you have to
make a circle and plow out
    what you missed.

People didn't always have tractors.
    As all farmers of HIS day, 
my Pop walked behind a single plow
    pulled by mules.

My grandad, Pop, got his first tractor
    in 1939---I saw it,there on his
lawn down in sandy West Texas,
    under the elm tree next 
to his house---sitting safely
    and proudly...a red Farmall.

As I write this remembrance...
    I can almost see thru' the 
mists of time---our old Case tractor
    sitting out there by the windmill
under the apple tree...and it's still
    hooked to the twenty-two-and-
a-half foot one-way plow...

Why I think I might just make a round
    around the half section, around
the fence line...for old time's sake.

When I was fifteen, I just put my foot
   there on the hitch somewhere
behind the seat ( I could show you where)
    and skinny and agile as I was
just vault up there---ready to go.

Now, someone would have to boost
    me up. A cold windy day 
in March would be nice---going north
    all the heat from the motor would
warm me.

Why, if I started on Monday morning
early, I could have that half-section
    "plowed out" by Friday afternoon
in time to meet all my eighty-year-old
    CHS friends, down at the Lyceum,
and maybe after the movie, we could
    get a ham salad sandwich over at
Woolworth, for twenty cents.

Now you see what effect reminiscing
    has on folks...

And you see how my heart was all
    bound up with that orange workhorse...
I have respect for its strength, perseverance,
    and its stick-to-it-tive-ness... and dare I
ascribe: dedication....the ability to get 
    the job done!

Into my reflections on those times, I realize
    that the blue Eastern New Mexico skies---
the billowing thunderheads of summer---
    the breezes and winds of Ranchvale---
the beloved windmill at our place, ever
    pumping the best cold fresh water 
in the world---
     with its "clung, clung, clung..."

And not the least, the sight and smell of
   the dark brown freshly-turned soil...
the miracle of it---
    something that at the time was lost on
a teen-ager...
    (but he would remember and realize later
the beauty and the mystery...of...)

Those things had a bearing on life as
    it was to a plowing-boy...

But looking back at it all, to those marvelous,
    indescribable, never-to-return forties...
and remembering...I now know

that Orange Wheatland Case tractor
                       and I...
were Pards!

Farmall

POP'S HOUSE

His new 1939 Farmall was backed onto his green lawn, right beside the two white windows.   There were identical elms all around his house.  The tractor was sitting under one (now gone).  There was a beautiful dark rock fence running around the house (now gone) and note the "well shaft" where the windmill was, in the foreground. 

********30*******
BY MIL
03/09/14
(Dedicated to Levi,  Wylie, and Richard, 
    fellow plowers.)