My grandfather was something of a hobby farmer. He had a few acres on which he grew every vegetable they might need?tomatoes, potatoes, squash, cucumbers, corn, beans, peas, you name it?and when I came to visit on weekends, I would often help him tend the garden or harvest his crops.
He also owned a tractor. This machine, as I understand it, was born the same year as my father. It was a Ford, mostly red and blue, but long-faded after twenty-odd years in the sun. I do not remember ever seeing the tractor with a hood on it. For as long as I can remember, the hood of the tractor rested half-buried in the pasture behind the house. There was a reason for this: the tractor broke down often, and removing the hood allowed him easier access to the engine. He actually kept the tools he needed inside the engine compartment, by the parts that required them. A screwdriver by the carburetor. A hammer by the fuel pump.
I have learned since his death, in the course of listening to my father tell stories about him, that the tractor did not have a reverse gear. This meant that if he wanted to turn a tight corner, he was forced to make a kind of figure eight, looping out and then back in again.
I remember only odd specifics about the tractor. The front wheels made an odd V-shape. I never knew if the fenders were an off-white color because they were stained by two decades of use or if they were originally made that way. I remember the black, metal steering wheel, with its hard, pre-fabricated finger-grooves; I remember sitting in his lap, steering, while he shifted gears and worked the pedals.
He was also prone to plow his garden with a horse and plow. As a child, I plowed the fields with him, urging the ancient horse, Charlie, forward with a loud “CHKCHKCHK” and stopping him with “HO!!!” I would sometimes help him put a bit in the Charlie’s mouth and attach a bridle and reins. I remember having to reach up above my own head to grasp the smooth handles of the plow.
My grandfather was the cheapest man on the face of the earth. He was a survivor of the depression, and ran what he described to me as a “peddling wagon” through the streets of Memphis during the late 30s and early 40s. He claimed to have taken part in building one of the bridges across the Mississippi. He followed us around the house turning off lights, and once threw my father out of his house after my father explained how much it cost him to burn a 100 watt lightbulb for an hour. He also threw my father out of the house when he tried to explain how the metric system worked, but that’s another story.
I always thought he was full of shit.
But he wasn’t. All of it was true. And when he died, at the age of 85, what finally did him in was this: when he went to Mobile to help build ships during World War II, he was given an asbestos smock, mask, and gloves. He died, eventually, of asbestosis.
He’d had pneumonia for the last 20 years of his life.
But there are really only two things to remember here:
Old tractor. Cheap man.
The story runs something like this:
The tractor would occasionally stall, and my grandfather, convinced that there was something wrong with the fuel pump, would climb down from the seat and beat on the fuel pump with a small hammer. After a few minutes of beating on the fuel pump, he would climb back up and start the tractor again. And it would start right back up.
After years of this, the poor fuel pump beaten into an unrecognizable state, he was finally forced to take this poor tractor to a mechanic. He drove the tractor, at two miles an hour, down the road, where he left his tractor for examination.
The mechanic determined that there was nothing wrong with the fuel pump. Another part of the tractor was overheating, and that was what was causing the machine to stall.
It took him so long to climb down from the seat, and then so long to beat on the fuel pump, and then finally so long to make his way back up to the seat, that the overheated part would cool, allowing the tractor to start right up.