Getting old when



2400

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Come on you guys, how young are you? That was in 1976.

I bought a new pick-up in 1969, paid cash for it.

I remember gas wars between the station I worked at and the three on the other corners, gas was down to $.16 for a week or so. I also remember washing ALL the windows, checking the air in ALL the tires, checking everything under the hood, giving stamps and glasses (or what ever we were giving away) and saying Thank You come again. That was for any amount of gas from a couple of gallons to a fill up.
 

Rowdie

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AND, YOU PUMPED THE GAS. That's old school full service station. Younger ones on here might not even know what that is. Customers didn't even have to get out of their car.
 
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Ristorapper

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I can still recall helping uncle on the farm. I knew about the starter push button on the floor but could not find it on the old Studebaker grain truck. My legs were not long enough at age 9 to depress the clutch all the way to the floor to engage the starter on that ol beeeoch!!!
 


LBrandt

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Used to drive my dads old 51 chev. pickup from the field to home yard. Dad would put it in first gear and set the gas then step out and I would drive it home' Once I got in yard I just turned the key off. Mom would come get the pickup and unload the grain and do the same as Dad did. Then I would drive the field road back to Dad. Saved the folks a lot of time that way. I think I was 8 or 9 years old at the time and proud as hell.
 

PrairieGhost

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LBrandt I had a similar experience. I'm going to murder the spelling here, sorry flycarpin. I could not reach the clutch on tractors, but my dad bought an old Minneapolis Molinn with a hand clutch. We farmed, but dad also worked at a concrete plant. In the morning he would set the depth on the Graham Hommy digger and I would dig sometimes only a few hours, and a few times all day. There were no hydrolics . You had to squeeze a lever and move it to the notch that set your desired depth. One morning I thought I was big enough to do it myself. Squeezing with both hands I managed to free the toggle from the upper most notch , but I could not handle the weight of the digger. Since I was squeezing with all my strength I had a real good grasp of the lever. When it released it yanked me off my feet faster than you could blink your eyes. At first I thought I was going to be lucky enough to clear the entire digger and land on the ground behind. That's close to what happened, but my shines took a beating somewhere in the trajectory. I felt lucky not leaving the family hanging on that darn lever.

Edit: That should read lower most notch.
 
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BrokenBackJack

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My Dad had MM tractors also. We had 2 G tractors for field work. One propane and one gas. Anyway they both had hand clutches and we had a steinman spring type hitch on the plow and the spring hitch had a cable that would attach to the bottom of the hand clutch in case you hit a big rock and that would trip the hand clutch so you didn't bust up the plow. That was before the trip style plows. Anyway got close to the end of the field and was reaching for the hydraulic lever to raise the plow and "bam" it hit a rock and tripped the hand clutch right into my forearm. Fell off the back of the tractor on the ground and swore i broke my forearm. Laid there for a few minutes in pain and neighbor was working right across the way. He came over and asked what happened and looked at my arm which had really swelled up. He said i better go home and quit plowing. He thought i should go to the Doctor to check it out. We never went to the Doctor unless you had a bone sticking out. My Mom's cure for everything was "Vicks".
Went back to plowing until i finished the field then went home. It wasn't broken that i know of, as never went to Doctor. That sucker hurt for many weeks and was quite tender so to speak! Had to be my right arm too.
The good old days!
 
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db-2

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On the super 9 I drove it had a hand clutch with the cable hook up to the plow and then a coil spring brought the wd-9 back to re-hook the hitch.
Kept ones body away from the clutch but the worse was pushing that clutch back in after it trip and knowing it was going to trip again in all likely hood on the same rock with ones hand still pushing on the clutch.

Broken arms, my brother falls off the tractor, pain but no doctor until a few days later and it was broken. At least when I took a trip off the hayrack they took me in with a broken hand.
Yes the old days, the same with hooking up whatever implement as one stood on the ground pushing the clutch in by hand. More than once I was glad the implement did stop the tractor. Finally bought a 806 with a foot clutch and I thought this would never work. db
 


LBrandt

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Will not be too long and farmers will be running their equipment from their couch with a joy-stick and a V R head piece.
 

Rowdie

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And after that all automated, robots with AI will do everything.
 

BrokenBackJack

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Things have definitely changed in the farming world. Heck even the grain cart driver quits steering when coming up to the combine. The guy in the combine controls it all.
Stuff like that is truly amazing to this old fart. I think this is really something but our military is 20 years ahead of this.
 

Rowdie

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Robot soldiers? All sounds good till the robots take over.
 

lunkerslayer

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I am truly enjoying all your old timers stories, I would say there is a lot of honest hardworking men on this site and when you leave the world is going to be in for a rude awakening as to what it was like to come home with dirt under your fingernails.
 


LBrandt

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Dad always said you get more corn out of a crooked row. With the new GPS guided tractors that aint happening any more.
 

BrokenBackJack

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I can honestly say i used up a lot of Guardian Angels from early on through my 20's. Some of the things we did to get things done and of course some of the "stupid" things we done when having fun.
We were brought up to be workaholics which was OK better that than being lazy for sure. Everything was manual when i was growing up. Hauling bales by hand, picking rock by hand, digging post holes and pounding posts by hand, no hoists on the trucks or trailers so had to shovel the grain off by hand, hauling water to the hogs by hand with 2 five gallon buckets across the cattle feed lot full of frozen turds. I think i hated that the worst. Heck we had 4-5 acres to mow in the yard and that was with a push mower. That had to be done after all your other chores were done. By the time you got it mowed you had to start all over again.
Then one wonders why his body is shot! I have to say one thing with all the manual labor, a guy was in shape and rock ass solid!
 

db-2

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Yes and the shovel was steel and not only off the truck but back into the truck to sell or for seed. Glad at that time folks only had storage for 5000 bushels in a wooden structure. But in time the bins came, small at first, but so did the augers and hoist.

I remember asking my mother why we milk the cows by hand, haul the buckets to the house for the separator (for me the crank was gone and it had a motor, but it took forever to clean) and then haul most of it back to the barn for the calves. Yes the cream and the eggs bought the sugar and flour for cooking with some other stuff including a ice cream cone at the end of the night and maybe it was dip sometimes which was a treat.

I also remember dad saying we were not going to build haystacks with a farmhand loader anymore but make hay with a baler. Bad ideal. db
 

Davey Crockett

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What's the oldest old timers you old timers remember visiting with ? A neighbor that was born somewhere in the late 1860s for me and he was 102 or 104 when he died , Nobody knew for sure . He wasn't much of a talker but neighbors told of his travels. He didn't have a vehicle but I remember he came walking to our house with a letter once and had my dad read it to him and had dad write a reply.

Lots of hillbilly family born in late 1800s that loved telling stories of the olden days. My Father in law was born in 13 on the prairie and he told stories of the rabbit hunts and skunk trapping he and his 4 brothers did and dickering with the Porter Brothers in Minot for hours to get the best price they could for their furs . They are all gone now except for My mom who was born in 20 and has a big birthday coming up this year, She still likes to tell about the days when she snared rabbits along the trail to school and had a trap line. Back in those days for farmers furs were the biggest cash flow they had for a lot of years, farming was tough and jobs were scarce.

- - - Updated - - -

I like tinkering with old stuff , Hoping to get it running this summer.



truck.jpg
 

2400

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What's the oldest old timers you old timers remember visiting with ?

I remember talking with my Grandpa (1888) and hearing about how he and 2 friends ran away from home at 13 (in Kansas) and going to Colorado to go "cowboy". They fought Indians 4 times on the trip and Grandpa had an arrow head and part of a shaft in his chest until his late 70's, he also fought a bear and wound up killing it with his knife, he had some really bad scars and bite marks. I think about the pussys of today that at 13 can't get off their asses to fix a sandwich.

He had some old friends I talked with but mostly sat in the corner and just listened to them. Like Grandpa some had fought Indians, a couple of them had been in the Spanish American War and talked about it a little, some had ben in WWI, a lot of WWII and Korea Vets were around at that time. I was fortunate to have been around at that time and hear and remember some of the stories they told, now there are some "kids" asking me to tell some of my own.
 


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