When agricultural columnist Alan Guebert wrote about his days as a youthful hired hand on his parent’s farm, the memory banks were triggered back to the 1940s.
That’s when this aging 80-something first began his contribution to the livelihood of the K-farm. The mystery of why a farm youth yearns to become a participating member of the farm’s labor force remains unsolved, but suffice it to say there is something magical about a young boy climbing aboard a tractor for the first time to be its driver.
There’s the feel of power as you start, engage the shift and add some throttle, let out the clutch and move ahead with something attached behind. What an exhilarating feeling to be in control of something other than a toy.
Little did we know what lurked ahead for us once our parents realized the value we brought to the family labor force. There were long hours of tedious back and forth in the fields for years to come. Many farm chores were eagerly coveted by this young farm boy. Sometimes, you have to wonder why we could hardly wait to milk our first cow or carry buckets of feed to hungry hogs and pail-calves.
Many of today’s oldsters were born and raised on farms without electricity, running water, hydraulics, tractor cabs, air conditioning and other creature comforts we take for granted today. They, too, can remember that euphoric feeling of finally being of use to the family, even though our destiny was to be one of much hard, hard labor.
MORE: Jerry Krueger: Grandson’s love of roller coasters has taken him across the country
My goodness, how far we have come from those days where drudgery was an everyday accompaniment to most farm tasks.
How excited I was when the first Allis Chalmers round baler appeared at our farm. I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic as I looked across a hayfield with a few thousand bales awaiting our attention. It was not hard to count that each of those bales would have to be handled four or more times before they reached the mouths of the livestock.
Today, farmers have traded that hard manual labor for the worry and concern over huge equipment prices, loans and input costs for raising crops and livestock.
During this year’s spring planting season, our farming partners planted a field of wheat in four hours. It would have probably taken Pa and me five long, long days to plant the same field. And we would have been bundled up in warm clothes and gloves to withstand the cold of sitting on the open-air tractor, which probably covered only 4 or 5 feet at a time.
Beginning to drive equipment as a farm boy meant power to us. My dad worried about my safety, so he would put the old Farmall H tractor in gear, show me how to hold in the clutch and start the engine. Then, it was up to me how I released the clutch and moved ahead. Even though I was about 8 or 9, I can remember like yesterday the very first time I got to drive the old H. It was hooked to a grain bundle rack at threshing time. It had to be maneuvered evenly along the shocks of grain so the man with the pitchfork could throw them easily up onto the rack. There were usually six bundle racks to a harvest crew. No one missed a turn at the machine to unload bundles into the hungry threshing machine.
MORE: Krueger: Honor Flight was the experience of a lifetime
The big hazard of driving a tractor hooked to a bundle rack was turning too short. Breaking the tongue or the reach between the tires was an unforgivable miscue for a farm lad.
There was the constant fear for a young novice driver that you would break something or hurt someone. So, one of the men at the machine had to drive the ol’ H up to the thresher. No sense having me cause a calamity.
The arrival of a new small Fordson tractor in 1946 was exciting, but that excitement soon waned when long, long days of plowing and cultivating with a small tractor became my assigned task. What fun to remember. But sometimes in life we must be careful about what we wish for.
Nuff said.
Gerald “Jerry” Krueger of Aberdeen is a retired pilot, teacher, coach and farmer.