TRACTORS: POST #16

I have loved tractors all of my life. When I was small my Dad traded our pair of horses to Lofty Preston for a big, Red, M Farmall tractor. Since that time my favorite tractor has been a Farmall although I like all the others as well. About the time that he traded for that tractor I got one just like it for Christmas I guess. It was Red too! It had two or three other pieces of equipment and I remember playing in the dirt with for hours. I have had three experiences with tractors including the one when Dad traded the horses for the big M, that I will never forget.

There was man named Poss Phillips who lived in our area and he drank quite a bit. One time he came into town, probably to bring a load of cotton to the gin, and while we was waiting for his cotton to be ginned he had a little too much to drink. When he started home he was driving across the big bridge over Gum Slough ditch and ran off into the ditch filled with water. He died in that accident. He was pulling the wagon and they got it and of course the tractor out of the ditch and my Dad bought that wagon. For many, many, years Dad kept that wagon and every time that I looked at it I thought of that tragic accident that took the life of one of our neighbors.

The most memorable tractor story that I vividly remember is one that involved me and Dad's little Allis-Chalmers tractor that he had bought. The wheels on the front were spread far apart. Dad had taken the tractor to a garage in town and worked on it and the day that we went to get it we had a problem. Dad had driven the truck and the tractor needed to be driven home too. So, he asked me if I thought that I could drive the tractor home. I was about 14 years old. I told him that I could do it.

When I left for home I knew that Dad was standing in the street watching me drive down the road to Herman Junction. When I got a pretty good distance from town and I knew that he wasn't looking, I began turning the wheels and driving back and forth from one side of the road the other ....back and forth, back and forth. One time I got the wheels turned so far to the right that I couldn't get them turned back in time and ran down a big embankment and turned over in the ditch. It threw me off in the railroad right of way and I was not hurt. It scared the thunder out of me. I jumped up on the road and took off running back to the garage where Dad was. I ran in there and told him that I had met a drunk man in a white car and he ran me off the road and I turned the tractor over. Would you believe that Clarence Rodgers came driving up and heard me tell that story and said, "Herb, I met that same SOB and he nearly ran me off the road too!" Do you believe in miracles? Here I had told the biggest lie of my life and had a witness to back me up! I don't know what or who Clarence Rodgers saw but to this day I have not seen that white car with a drunk driver. You know, I don't think that I ever did tell Dad the truth about that incident. If I had he surely would have taken the razor strap to me regardless of my age.

Mom's best friend from her childhood days was Gladys Bradke Cook from Enola, Arkansas. Glad and her girls came to visit us occasionally and they were there when I turned over the tractor. I had the biggest crush in the world on Allie Rae, one of her girls. But, she and my older brother Ray were the same ago and they had a crush on each other so I was just left out of the picture. That is until the day that I wrecked the tractor. I was lying on the bed after we got home and Allie Rae came and sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my forehead. I thought that I had died in the tractor wreck and an angel was taking care of me! Allie is to this day a great friend and we love her children to death. By the way, she doesn't even know this story but it sure is the truth. See, that is one of the reasons why all is well at Herman Junction.