[AT] Oil dry / Rural King / And even more O.T. stuff

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

GREAT STORY Herb! I love to hear first hand stories like that. What little I 
have pitched with a pitchfork, I know exactly what you are talking about, 
sometimes they don't let go!
Dad would agree 1930 was a good year, that’s when he was born. He's got a 
birthday coming up in 3 days. I kept the shop nice and warm today and we 
worked in it most of the day. At 84 and 2 recent heart surgeries he can't 
turn wrenches like he did 2-3 years ago, but he hangs in there with me and 
gives plenty of advice!

John Hall


-----Original Message----- 
From: Herb Metz
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2015 1:54 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] Oil dry / Rural King / And even more O.T. stuff

John,
We had a bachelor neighbor (Casey Meggar{sp}) who owned and operated a steam
engine and a threshing machine.  His life was there in a big metal shed with
concrete floor with his shop, a couple steam engines, half dozen old, never
used, cars (1920's, Star, three seat National {driver seat up front and two
sat in back, just two doors but the lack of passengers seat up front made it
easy to enter/exit}, etc); his heat was large logs in an old steam engine
firebox, he slept on a cot somewhere back in the corner, couple cats around
to handle the little critter problem.  His folks lived approx 500' away in a
very nice home.  He always had several dozen calves in his feedlot; hay was
the only crop because the ground was flat but not tillable (hardpan?).  Dad
would stop in several times each year; I was all eyes and ears.  Couple
times, mid 40's, Casey entered the local town after harvest parade, had a
good looking team pulling a nice farm wagon with couple hay bales, etc. and
his farm clothes on, and signs on the wagon "40 cents for eggs, 70 cents for
meat, how in the h*** can a poor fellow eat".  Casey toured the neighborhood
doing after harvest threshing of loose/bundled wheat/oat straw.  Approx
1946, Dad and I swapped help with several neighbors a couple summers.  The
first day I pulled a wagon alongside the extra long conveyor Casey had
attached to the threshing machine, then started tossing bundles onto this
conveyor. We used four tine regular pitchforks with considerable curvature
of each tine, whereas a tine fork is two or three tines with reduced
curvature of each tine.  A neighbor Dads age was pitching bundles off
another wagon on other side of the conveyor. I pitched several bundles onto
the conveyor, great. Then about the sixth bundle I piptched onto the
conveyor took the fork out of my hands; there was the bundle on the conveyor
going up toward the threshing machine, with my pitchfork still in the
bundle.  Before I could even think of what to do, the experienced guy across
from me stepped toward the conveyor and extended his pitchfork to retrieve
my pitchfork from that bundle.  I could breath again.  I will never forget
that.  Looking back, he was probably expecting something like this might
happen.   After that I did not sink the pitchfork into the bundles any
further than necessary, and gripped the fork more firmly when releasing the
pitched bundle.  Foreign metal, etc was a nightmare for the threshing
machines metal teeth that shredded the straw and the wheat/oat kernel from
its hull. There were several other threshing machines in our area (central
KS), but the closest was fifteen miles away. Tell your Dad that 1930 was a
good year.  Herb(GA)