Snow keeps falling down, down. . . It's getting to be real old. I want to see some green, so I dug out this model "AR" John Deere, the first tractor I ever drove. This one's a bit more streamlined than my memory of an open grille and open fly wheel, but nevertheless it opens the window shade to let me watch that young boy in the hay field steering it to pull an old horse dump rake where Dad sat on its machinery seat and worked the foot trip lever. If I remember correctly we did it this way because the rope trip lever didn't work from the tractor seat so he rode the rake and dumped the hay with his foot. The John Deere's clutch control was hand lever, and I had all I could do to pull it and disengage it. Well, a situation developed. The rake had a long wooden pole, a throwback to its horse drawn days, and it broke. Dad hollered to stop and I pulled back hard. The fulcrum bolt at the bottom of the clutch lever assembly was rusted and worn and it snapped. Just like that, that lever had no leverage! Dad jumped off the rake and caught up to the runaway, grabbed the flopping lever, and pulled back. It disengaged and we got stopped. Little things like that firmly entrenched themselves in my mind, and I think back to it everyone once in awhile.The date today, April 19th: A winter storm warning is in effect for the rest of the day and into the evening. Maybe I'll have to keep digging out model tractors for color; I have a "B" John Deere and an "H" Farmall.
