[AT] Simple lessons

[David Rotigel]

Many years from now Dean (as you grow older) you will look back on all this as simply another adventure along the road of life!
	Dave

On Apr 10, 2014, at 10:06 PM, Dean Vinson <dean at vinsonfarm.net> wrote:

> I'm preparing to move my 53 Super M from its and my suburban home to our
> long-awaited little old farm in the country, and the onset of warm weather
> makes me think I'll simply drive it the 35 miles rather than arrange to have
> it hauled.   This evening's chore was to take it down to the corner gas
> station and fill the tank, and then change the oil once back home, and 70+
> degree temperatures and warm evening sunlight made it seem like a simple
> task.
> 
> First discovery was that my battery was dead, again, somewhat to my surprise
> since I had removed it from the tractor and fully charged it not that long
> ago.  Okay, it was probably six months ago, but in my mind it was very
> recent.   So I threw the charger back on it for a while and attended to some
> household chores, but as sunset approached I thought I'd best get on my way
> so I took the charger off, flipped the seat base back down over the battery
> and bolted it tight, and cranked the engine over.  Fired right up like the
> fine old girl she is, and I chugged my way down to the station.
> 
> Chugged being the right word, too, since last year's remnant of gasoline was
> looking rather orange in the sediment bowl and seemed to cause the engine to
> be undecided about what RPM it ought to be running at, or possibly whether
> it ought to be running at all.   In hindsight, I notice my factory-sealed
> little bottle of StaBil sitting right there near the battery charger where I
> set it not that long ago, intending to put it in the tank before winter.
> Okay, it was six months ago, but in my mind it was very recent.   
> 
> $63.00 worth of fresh gasoline later, I climbed back up, listened to that
> familiar rhythm of clank-rattle-rattle-squeak-click-scratch (clutch in, make
> sure gear shift's in neutral, little tug on throttle, pull out ignition
> switch, pull back starter rod).   As always, that part sounded great.    But
> the following "click-click-silence" wasn't so endearing a tune.   #@*$! that
> battery.
> 
> Now, I refer to this place as the "corner gas station," since it is in fact
> a gas station and on a corner, and I like it because one of the roads that
> forms the corner is a quiet neighborhood street that links up to some other
> quiet neighborhood streets, one of which eventually links up with my
> driveway.  Trouble is, the other road on the corner is a six-lane divided
> artery two-tenths of a mile from the interstate off-ramp and one-tenth in
> the other direction from a traffic light at the entrance to the mall, and it
> turns out I wasn't the only one who'd thought to stop at the gas station
> this evening.   I was the only one with an old farm tractor, to be sure, but
> the fact that it was dead silent and blocking one of the service aisles at
> the station detracted somewhat from whatever cachet I imagined I'd had up to
> that point.
> 
> So I left it in neutral, climbed back off, and proceeded to roll it out of
> the way.   For a 6000-pound machine, it rolls pretty easily on nice smooth
> level asphalt, which would have come in right handy if the gas station
> parking lot had had very much of that.  As it was, I was working up a sweat
> leaning into one of the rear wheels and inching my way along over potholes
> and patches, when a young man pulled up in the next aisle and came over to
> ask if I needed jumper cables.    I thanked him and said yes, that would be
> terrific, since my alternate plan was to inch my way the remaining two
> hundred yards or so to where I hoped the road sloped down steeply enough and
> for far enough that I could roll-start the tractor.   So he hopped back in
> his SUV, pulled around and parked nose-to-nose with the tractor, and got out
> with his jumper cables.   Then after I showed him that the battery was
> actually under the operator's seat at the back of the tractor, he patiently
> drove back around to the back.
> 
> By then I'd climbed up to open the toolbox to get the big crescent wrench to
> loosen the battery-cover bolts, only to be greeted by its distinct absence
> along with a crystal-clear mental image of it sitting on the bench in my
> garage where I'd set it about 12 minutes earlier after tightening hell out
> of those bolts.   Evan (as the young man was named, I later learned), turned
> out to be more patient and helpful than I could have hoped for and offered
> to drive me home to get the wrench.   So we made a quick round trip, opened
> up the battery box, and hooked up the cables.   I realized I'd have to break
> my rule about never starting the tractor unless I'm in the seat with the
> clutch in, since the seat was flipped back over and the
> jumper-cabled-battery didn't seem too appealing an alternative.  So after
> making sure it was in neutral with the brakes set I settled for the
> squeak-click-scratch of throttle/ignition/starter rod, and the Super M fired
> right up like the fine old girl she is.
> 
> Evan said his goodbyes as I bolted the seat base/battery cover back down,
> and then I hopped up, switched the lights onto Low, and hummed off into the
> darkness.   Hummed being the right word, too, since that new yellow gasoline
> flushed the sediment bowl and flowed on down to the carburetor and made it
> nice and easy for the engine to know right what RPM it ought to be running
> at.   
> 
> Dean Vinson
> (Soon to be from) Saint Paris, Ohio
> 
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