[AT] What you want to do - was RE: McCormick plow

[charlie hill]

The easy way is something my dad never mastered.
I can remember helping him put the cultivator frames on
his tractor.  There was a big spring that had to be connected.
He'd put the whole mess on and tighten it all up and then take
a big screw driver and a big pair of pliers and strain his guts out
trying to hook that spring up.  Sometimes it would slip and cause him
to hurt his hands.  I just figured it was the way it was supposed to be
done and tried to help him.  In the end he taught me how to do it the
easy way although he never learned.  He did so when he died when I was 16 
and I had
no one to help me with the cultivators and wasn't about to ask my uncles
and my daddy's "friends" who never offered to help so I figured out the
easy ways on my own.   Turns out if you put that spring on before you
finish putting the rest of the cultivator frame on and tightening it up
you can use the frame it's self to tension the spring as you attach and 
tighten
the frame.  It was the same with our bush hog.  He's always unhook it and
let it drop to the ground and then have to take a jack and raise it up to 
get
it hooked back to the tractor.  I soon learned to carefully position some 
blocks
under the bush hog frame at the right height.  I don't know why he never 
thought
of that except that he grew up on mules and during the short few years we
farmed together (after he sold his service station) he was learning too.
His attitude was to put your head down and go until you got it done.
Tractors were new to him even though it was the late 1950's by then and they
wouldn't do what he told them to do like ole Nell and Pete would.

Charlie

-----Original Message----- 
From: Cecil R Bearden
Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 1:37 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] What you want to do - was RE: McCormick plow

Charlie:

That is what I think they all the farming work ethic.  When I go out on
a consulting job, and I always get called in when things have gone
wrong, I look for the guy who has to older truck and maybe has a little
green manure still crusted on his boots.  That is the one who will be
the most help to figure out a solution with the equipment on available.

I have to give my Dad the credit for teaching me how to really work.
Also how to do things the easy way!!!

Cecil in OKla



On 9/6/2014 7:47 AM, charlie hill wrote:
> Oh I agree John.  I'm no sexist.  I fully believe in women working.  LOL
> No you are right and my sister did work and she worked hard but she
> only remembers the days that she helped out.  She has no memory of
> the days that I sat on the tractor for 16 hours because she wasn't there.
> She was off doing girl stuff with my mom or her friends and she didn't
> even know there was any work going on.  Also, as far as the tobacco
> work, you are right.  The work the men did was just a lot harder work
> plus the farmer or the farmers son (me) was working long before and long
> after the others.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  My dad never
> wanted me to have to work hard like he did and if I hadn't been willing I
> wouldn't have had to do near as much as I did.  I wanted to do it but that
> doesn't mean it wasn't long, hard, tiring work.  I didn't want to do it
> because
> it was fun.  I wanted to do it because if I didn't my dad had to do it and
> it was
> easier for me than for him.
>
> Charlie
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: jtchall at nc.rr.com
> Sent: Saturday, September 06, 2014 7:22 AM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] What you want to do - was RE: McCormick plow
>
> Too funny Charlie! I had to explain it a couple times to my sister last 
> year
> that the girls never did the work I did. Hard to believe she's 50 years 
> old
> and just getting that. I think I finally got it through to her that girls
> and old men went to deliver tobacco and grain. Able bodied young men were
> needed to do manual labor. I was grown and delivering my own  grain before 
> I
> ever went to an elevator. We started earlier and stayed later. If it was
> hotter or stormier then we were still at it working, not at the house. We
> worked alone in remote places.  Don't mean to sound sexist, that's just 
> the
> way it was. Personally I'm all for the ladies helping out on the farm, but
> unless she is an exception to the rule and really wants to or can, some 
> work
> is for the menfolk. I know a few ladies that worked as long as the men, 
> but
> that was a matter of survival for the family and was many decades ago. 
> There
> might still be in some isolated cases, but not like what it was.
>
> John
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: charlie hill
> Sent: Friday, September 05, 2014 2:30 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] What you want to do - was RE: McCormick plow
> To this day my sister swears she put in as much work on the farm as I did.
> grins.  She worked the same
> hours as the hired help.  Well, I'll take that back.  She did usually help
> us take the dried tobacco out of the barn
> but she stood outside in the cool morning breeze and passed the sticks of
> cured leaves to my dad to load
> on the truck or trailer.
>
> Charlie
>
>
>
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