[AT] Best of ATIS? ---The D8 story

[Mike Sloane]

I don't know if I am "typical" of the membership, but I know my messages 
to the list have fallen off over the last several years. I can give you 
several reasons:

When ATIS was created and for several years after, it was virtually the 
ONLY old tractor forum on the internet. Now there are niche lists and 
forums of all kinds, and they tend to attract a good deal of the message 
traffic. I participate on a couple of Cub lists and other Farmall lists, 
as well as Wheelhorse, Struck, Case (garden tractor), etc.

When I retired ten years ago, my "disposable income" was reduced, and, 
while I had plenty of time to spend on old machinery, the money just 
wasn't there to buy more "project tractors".

At the same time, I found that I had more than enough tractors and no 
more room to store them. I now have at least one or more tractors for 
every chore I need to do and a few that just sit in the back of the barn 
and collect dirt. (Fortunately, my neighbor's cats have been keeping the 
mouse population in check, so I don't mind that they call the tractor 
seats their bedrooms.) I would sell some of the "lawn ornaments" (Ford 
2N, a couple of Cubs, a Farmall Super M, for instance), but the market 
just isn't there these days. Maybe when the market picks up...

Speaking of markets, there just don't seem to be many old tractors for 
sale around here these days, except for some really sorry "ran when 
parked" hulks that have to be dug up. I don't know why that is.

My main towing (and snow plowing) vehicle, an older Ford F350 mason 
dump, finally gave up the ghost and was replaced by a brand new half ton 
Toyota Tundra (my first brand new truck!). And while I love the truck, 
it really isn't suitable for hauling larger tractors. I sold my old 
trailer to a friend. So, unless I hire someone to haul for me, my 
fetching and delivering tractors is no more. (Cecil Monson and I used to 
go on a lot of "road trips, but that ended with his passing.)

So, except for periodic mysterious problems with my existing machines, I 
really don't have much to contribute to the list. But I still very much 
enjoy reading others' messages about their tractor activities.

Mike

On 5/5/2012 7:39 AM, john hall wrote:
> Charlie, the lists were already split when I joined up and we still got more
> traffic than one had time to read. I subscribed to Farmall and ATIS and
> could barely keep up. We had a great mix of Q&A , restoration stories as
> well as stories from back in the day when our old iron was new.
>
> Unfortunately it seems no one here restores anything and rare is it any of
> us need mechanical help.
>
> John