[AT] Strange modification

charliehill charliehill at embarqmail.com
Wed May 12 09:27:02 PDT 2010


Ron he had HUGE tax liability and that was in the days before the tax code 
was changed.  I suspect he made money on the deal.  It sure did make a lot 
of money for a lot of poor folks in coastal NC.  He bought  something like 
100 Cat dozers (I forget the exact number) in one order split between two 
salesmen.  One of the salesmen, now deceased, was a friend of mine.  His son 
is about my age and owns a local lawn tractor dealership.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Cook" <rlcook at longlines.com>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 12:09 PM
Subject: Re: [AT] Strange modification


> Some folks have more money than brains.
>
> Ron Cook
>
> charliehill wrote:
>> A motor grader is about the strongest pulling machine you'll run up with.
>> Back in the late 70's a fellow named Malcolm McClain sold out his 
>> Charlotte
>> NC based trucking business and dumped a lot of the cash into a huge farm 
>> in
>> N/E NC.  Well actually it was a pocosin.  He cleared it and began making 
>> it
>> into farm land.  The soil was so acid that they were putting 10 or 12 
>> tons
>> of lime to the acre on cutover and root raked land just to get the roots 
>> to
>> rot.  I was one of the truckers that hauled the lime to the place.
>>
>> The roads on the place were nothing but 2 deep canals dug about 50 or 
>> more
>> feet apart with all of the dirt piled in the middle and graded out into a
>> roadway.  The canals were deep and wide enough to bury a tractor trailer 
>> in.
>> It wasn't unusual to get stuck with a loaded tractor-trailer dump right 
>> in
>> the middle of the main field roads and getting stuck on the side roads 
>> was
>> almost a daily occurance.  (Now I'm getting to the part about the motor
>> grader if anyone is still reading).
>>
>> They had a couple of special Cat graders spread out over the 100,000 acre
>> tract.  They would send them to the areas where we were hauling lime. 
>> They
>> had been fitted with rear wheels that were over twice as wide and not 
>> much
>> over half as tall as normal grader wheels.  That is what pulled us out 
>> most
>> of the time and most of the time they did a fine job and they were fast.
>> They'd pull a group of us through a tough spot in the road.  Then as a 
>> group
>> we'd go another couple of miles and get stuck again.  By the time we got 
>> the
>> road blocked up good the grader would catch up with us and pull us all 
>> out
>> again.
>>
>> Most of the time that worked.  When we really got stuck bad, usually 
>> while
>> we were trying to dump, they would send D-8 Cats to pull us out.  That 
>> is
>> assuming we were able to dump first.  If not the lime had to be shoveled 
>> out
>> of the dump bed.  Otherwise the dozer would pull the tractor and trailer 
>> out
>> but leave the trailer axles or part of them in the bog.   Occasionally 
>> one
>> side of the trailer wheels would sink while we were dumping.  That would
>> turn the trailer over and since most of us ran aluminum trailers the were
>> usually totaled or darn near it.  Most of us pulled 22' Ravens trailers.
>> Anything longer was nearly impossible to dump in the field without 
>> turning
>> over.
>>
>> I think they finally got about 35 or 40 thousand acres into farmable
>> condition.  The place was called First Colony Farm and it stretched over
>> part of 4 counties between Hwys.  US 64, NC 32 and US 264, east and south 
>> of
>> Plymouth NC.  The farm tracts were eventually sold off to various farmers
>> and investors.  There were probably 25 or more trucks hauling lime from 
>> as
>> far as 150 miles away, 6 and sometimes 7 days a week for a couple of 
>> years.
>> We were running from 4 am until 8 or 9 at night everyday.  The limiting
>> factor was getting the lime mine operators to stay open for us after 
>> hours.
>>
>> Charlie Hill
>>
>>
>>
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