[AT] Can you name the first three tractors you drove?

[carl gogol]

Now this seems like an easy question, but you guys telling your age of first 
time is a bit of a stretch for me.

My first ride on a tractor may have been on the lap of my dad at the age of 
3 or so on his TD-9 dozer.  He let me play with the blade control on a trip 
from the field to the barn one night and got a bit irritated when I jabbed 
it into the ground a few times,  I'm sure it was a reasonable thing to do 
from my viewpoint as that what he did all day long!

My fist solo drive was probably a bit older than most of you.  It was 
picking oat straw bales with a pre WW2 Farmall H with my mother and dad. 
Dad's attitude was I should be able to hoist a bale from the ground to about 
the second tier of bales before I was "big enough" to drive.  I was probably 
at least 10 by then.  It was complicated by not ever using a clutch before 
and having to start and stop the tractor smoothly or risk losing the load 
and having to relift the bales.  Lets just say it wasn't that easy with him 
making sure I didn't ride or slip the clutch too much and wear it out 
prematurely.  I eventually spent a lot of time raking and mowing hay as well 
as doing almost all the hauling of wagons (and of course unloading them) 
once we got the kicker baler.
The JD-60 was probably next, picking rocks when my dad was in an adjacent 
field seeding with the H.  Normally we would use the H for rock picking.  I 
remember how tired I was at the end of the day, and so very sore the next. 
The JD 60 was about 3 times the climb into the seat relative to the H and I 
must have made that climb 200 + times that Saturday.  ( I would guess that 
had to be about age 14.)
The next was an International B-275, my first diesel tractor.  Our neighbor 
loaned it to us for a few days during straw baling because the H was in the 
shop for a major overhaul.  I was raking straw one Sunday PM and the 
greatest clatter you can imagine started, it was a rod going through a 
sleeve.  It ould have been a perfect PM except for that.  Before the great 
clatter one of the Goodyear blimps passed directly overhead - I'll guess 
about 1965.
Carl Gogol - Manlius, NY
Tasty grazing in the Oran valley of Central NY
AC D14, 914H
JD 5320 MFWD
Kubota F-2400, B7300HST