[AT] Old tractors and old men

[Greg Hass]

This will be somewhat of a ramble and may wander so bare with me. Lately 
it seems some have hinted at problems so I suspect I am not alone. At 69 
much of what I thought would be the fun in life has left. Many of the 
things I looked forward to enjoying are going by the wayside. My brain 
is at about 35 years old but my body says go to he- double hockey 
sticks. A few months ago I found out my back is shot and can not be 
fixed.  It started 5 years ago while planting spring crops, every night 
I ran a small fever and in the morning I was fine only to run a fever 
again that night. After about 3 weeks I went to the doctor who ran some 
tests and found nothing. A week later the fever spiked and I went to the 
emergency room about midnight. More tests were run which showed nothing. 
The doctor said it had to be hiding somewhere and ordered a cat scan. A 
couple of hours later the results were in. For at least a month I had a 
ruptured appendix. That was bad enough, but come morning, they told me 
one of my kidneys had cancer. Six weeks later, I had surgery and they 
removed my appendix and my kidney. Fast forward to late fall; at the 
last checkup for the surgery, they told me I had prostate cancer. 50 
radiation treatments later I was moving forward but had lost the 
interest to do a lot of things. I have the best shop of my life to work 
in. It is only 24 x 24 but is heated and I have some nice tools such as 
a bridgeport  mill, torches and 3 welders plus other tools but have lost 
the go to it to go out and work plus my back is always sore. As someone 
has mentioned, if I get down on my knees I must get a hold of something 
to get up. Also for the last 4 years I have not enjoyed the 3 tractor 
shows I like to attend each year because of the pain in my hips only 
lets me walk about 200 feet at a time so I don't see much. I thought it 
was bad muscles but now know it was my back. For this year I hope to 
enjoy shows more as I bought a small electric handicapped scooter. None 
of our shows allow golf carts or 4 wheelers of any kind. 3 years ago I 
took my Polaris Ranger to one and it was great, but someone  else with 
one "bumped" someone and they sued the tractor show and that ended that. 
Handicapped scooters are allowed as they only hold one person and are 
slow moving. I guess the purpose of all this is how do some of this list 
handle problems and work on old tractors and such. I farm 110 acres and 
only have 2 pieces of equipment under 40 years old.  I used to look 
forward to getting  up in the morning and working on equipment.   All my 
life I have enjoyed working on mechanical things but now I still want to 
do it but I can't get the will power to do it. It's not the lack of time 
as I have lots of that but no getting it done. How do others on the list 
with health problems get it done. I don't want to sound like I'm 
complaining as I have much to be thankful for, however , not being able 
to work without pain and even then taking all day for a 1 hour job does 
get me down. I hope my thoughts are sort of clear and are not to off 
topic as these problems affect old iron in a big way.
                Greg Hass