re: #29 William Lewis

I can appreciate them but I got a love for Case from my grandfather. He’d take me to the shows to see tractors like this:

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Nothing like the sound of the steam piston driving the flywheel off to a thresher.

I did not appreciate the narrow front wheel tractor we used on the farm as much. Always thought that SOB was about to flip over on me.

Our ‘big’ tractor was a Case, but it wasn’t very big, compared to everyone else. And I don’t know why we had narrow front end tractors, but all our JD’s were pedestal front ends. One pedestal broke and rolled, but fortunately, VERY fortunately, our hired man hit the ground running, and wasn’t hurt.

We also had a hired man that was an idiot, and tried to fill one of our 720s while it was running. Naturally, it caught on fire. He didn’t turn it off, just got off and ran down the road. I was cooking, and heard what I thought was a jet plane in our yard. It was a blow torch going 80 feet in the air, when the top of the main propane tank blew. Also pushed back pressure up into our tenant house and caught it on fire from the pilot lights on everything. Luckily, by that time, the rural fire department had arrived to watch the fun, and they got to put out the house.