The Quest

       It wasn’t exactly the Holy Grail.

     Nor was there a damsel in distress.

     No fire-belching dragon, other than the internal ones which do not require an excursion to confront.

     I did not rename the Ford Ranger Rocinante.  I tugged along a faithful servant, the Goodwife, not one named Sancho Panza.

     My lampshade helmet?  A yellow Jegs cap and my “old-people” colored glasses that have side lenses to block blinding light coming in from the sides.

     This quest actually began more than thirty years ago when I reluctantly gave up finding a job anywhere in Eastern Colorado.  The farm was enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, CRP.

      Cover crops, weeds, and eventually a good stand of grass replaced  a two-year rotation of summer fallow followed by wheat.  I renewed ten-year contracts twice.  Thirty years of grass that got hayed once and grazed once in all that time.

      Ten years ago, I reenrolled about half of the acreage and began farming the other half using the old two-cylinder John Deere’s that had rested comfortably in the shed.  Finding parts for the old horses has become increasingly difficult. 

       Then there is one other detail:  I can’t spend eight hours a day riding a tractor any more, at least not the old hammering two-cylinders.  Age catching up with me.  Maybe I am Don Quixote after all. 

 

     An ad in the Miles Saver was the first step in the journey.  It said, “Wanted:  A versatile 750 tractor, or something similar.”  I got six responses. One of them was actually for a Versatile.  Otherwise, I got two John Deere responses, two Steiger offers, and one Allis Chalmers.

      I rejected one out of hand, as the tractor wasn’t in running condition.  The Goodwife and I set out on a sunny day in March and journeyed to Watkins where we looked at one of the John Deere’s.  I tried to drive it, but when I was trying to figure out how to shift the dang thing, the motor died. 

     The owner, an old guy from Haxtun, spent the next fifteen minutes hooking up an electric fuel pump to help prime the motor.  He got it started again and this time he drove it around the old farm house. New fuel filters were required.  It didn’t seem a prime candidate at that point.

       We returned to Loveland via Prospect Valley with a little side trip to Hoyt, Colorado.  Look that one up if you don’t know where Hoyt is!  There we viewed a 1974 Allis Chalmers 440.

     The Allis had a Cummins V-8 diesel motor and a Ford truck transmission.  With a stick coming up through the floor board front and center, figuring out how to shift it was no problem.  The biggest drawbacks, “only” 165 horse power, and two of the eight tires in not-so-good condition.

      Cold weather forced me back into hibernation.  On a warm March day, Sancho--er the Goodwife--and I took off for Otis, Colorado.  About fifteen miles north of the metropolis, we viewed a Steiger, a 1990’s model.  It was in great shape, with over 200 horse power and good tires.  The price tag was pretty good, too, about twice that of the Allis.  The shift levers and the two-page instructions on how to properly use them were a bit of a turnoff.

     That left one to go, the only Versatile on my list.  It was within ten miles of the farm, too.  Because it was so close and it was actually a Versatile, it seemed my odds-on favorite.  Except when I called to make an appointment to see it, the former owner informed me that he had sold it two weeks ago.  Ouch!

       He have a John Deere he would sell me.  I said I would go take a look, it being so close.  Thus, my adventure took me to the Les David place south of Genoa.

       This John Deere had all of the drawbacks of the other John Deere, plus thousands of hours on its hour meter.  All things pointed to the old Allis.

       On a solo voyage, I returned to Hoyt.  The old Allis started right up and I drove it around the farm yard, trying all the gears.  It would do.  At the time, the seller thought he could haul it for me.

      But then came the March blizzard.  As the weather warmed and March threatened to turn into April, Dan decided maybe he couldn’t haul it.  Could I find another trucker? 

      I tried, unsuccessfully.  The other thing that happened in that time, the price of diesel fuel rose about a dollar a gallon. 

       Dan did some research and consulted with a friend who trucks out of Bennet.  He decided he could haul it, but at a higher price than he had first offered.

      On a Saturday morning about 10 o’clock, the truck pulled in with its over-width load and coasted to a stop in the farmyard. 

 

        I wrote the check, and the tractor was ours.  At $10, 000, it was only a thousand more than the 4010 I bought last summer.

     My first official job as a new tractor owner was to remove all the goat heads sticking in the eight tires.  Not a crop I want to raise.

         The quest isn’t yet finished.  Now, there must be equipment worthy of such a work horse.  I have been back in Miles Saver. 

       So far, only three responses this time.  The journey continues.

      

Les David

    Avoid that goose no matter what.  Or was it a gander?

     On a quest, I found myself about two miles south of Genoa.  The place seemed oddly familiar, even though the old house was pretty run down and the yard and outbuildings in a state of disrepair.

      It must be the old Les David place.  (Luster William David died in 1974.)  Then the old memory machine kicked into gear.  It had to have been in the early 1950’s, because Les and Irene’s son Bill was in Korea at the time.

     Les was always a piano player.  He had this marvelous machine that would cut a vinyl record.  It was 78 rpm, I think, even though it is the smaller size, like a “45”.  I still have the record.  But I don’t have a record player that will do 78 rpm records anymore.  

     Since it was the early 50’s, I would have been somewhere between the ages of 3 and 6 or 7.  We all loaded up in the old Chev and trekked down to Les’s place.  It seems like it was a Sunday afternoon.  As I recall, Dad, Uncle Walter, and Les made a record or two to send to Bill in Korea, where he was serving in some branch of the service. 

     We went home with a record, too.  It would be nearly 70 years old now.

     I remember getting bored with the music and venturing outside.  But our outdoor activities were severely limited.  We had to stay inside the yard and keep the gate closed because that goose or gander would attack if we ventured into the farmyard outside of the fence.

 

       Thinking of Bill David caused another set of memories, memories of Syracuse, Kansas where Bill spent some time with Aunty and Uncle, playing music.  Except I don’t think Bill played any instrument.  I think he was a spectator.

      What I do remember is the way he balanced a burning cigarette on his lower lip.  He could carry on a conversation with that cigarette bobbing up and down with his lower lip.

    “No Walt, ‘lack’ I told Bessie. . . “ he would say as an intro to an anecdote or an opinion.   I wonder where Bill picked up his southern accent.

      And thinking of Bill made me think of other “characters” we met in Syracuse, one being a guy named Jack Pepper, I think.  He was a guitar picker with a 6-jack amplifier, a huge old box.  More memorable, he was a hypnotist. 

      He tried to hypnotize Uncle Ricky.  “Concentrate on your hand,” he would say over and over.  “Your hand is rising.  When your hand touches your forehead, you will be asleep.”  Or something like that. 

       Uncle Ricky’s hand did rise and touch his forehead, and he seemed asleep, but when Jack asked him to do something, he came out of the trance.  So Jack hypnotized his wife.

     He tried to get her to play the piano, but she was very shy and only sat at the keyboard shivering.  So he told her that when she came out of the trance, she would go into the bedroom and bring out a chair and invite Jack to sit in it.

      He brought her gently out of her zombie state.  When she was fully awake, she walked into the nearby bedroom, grabbed a chair and brought it out and said, “Have a chair, Jack.”

      He said, “Honey, I’m already sitting down,” and laughed.  She opined that she didn’t care to be hypnotized again.  The “piano” session had worn  her out physically and mentally, apparently, even though she had no recollection of sitting at the piano and refusing to play.

      When she was invited to play after her “spell” was over, she refused.  She wasn’t at all certain of her piano playing skills.  Jack said that a person couldn’t be persuaded to do something under hypnosis, that they wouldn’t ordinarily do.  I guess he proved it, too.  He said the idea that a bad actor hypnotizing an ordinary person and turning them into a murderer was total fiction.  

      All of this stimulated by a wild goose chase south of Genoa.  More on my wild goose chase next time.  Stay tuned.