Possumblog

Most comfortable tractor EVER!

After doing everything but laundry, it was time to get ready to go up to the church building. Showered, changed shirts, gathered up the junk we were taking consisting of hot dogs, chips, drinks, candy, and ourselves, piled in the van, and were on our way.

Big topic of conversation amongst the children? What to do about a tractor.

As I mentioned, the old tractor we had to pull a mower deck was traded in for a nice riding lawnmower. Nice for mowing grass, but useless for pulling a trailer full of hay and kids. And I hadn't heard what was going to be done for a substitution. "I don't know kids--I reckon someone will come up with something."

And sure enough, just as surely as there was a ram stuck in the brambles to substitute for Isaac, we had a substitute prime mover. One of our members agreed to let us use his hunting truck, a mid-'80s 4WD Isuzu P'Up.

While the rest of automobiledom might scoff at the lowly Isuzu, and use such adjectives as "agricultural," that is JUST such a thing as was required.

I never thought I would see it, but there actually is a vehicle that throbbed and rumbled more than the old 40 horse Massey Ferguson diesel we used to have--BUT--this one had a nice cushy seat, and a RADIO, and power steering, and power brakes, and a roof, and an exhaust pipe that didn't exit right in my face. Yes, friends, the little four-pot engine might shake more than Ted Kennedy having the DTs, but the little bugger pulled that trailer all over the place with not a single bobble or scary incident. AND, I got to listen to the Alabama-Tennessee game, AND it even had a CUPHOLDER! Sure, it might have looked better to have a tractor, but from the driver's perspective, it was hard to beat. And really, isn't that all that counts? Of course it is!

The kids had a good time--there was one of those inflatable trampolines, and enough sugar to keep Brazil solvent for several years, and fun, and games, and a pie toss, and coloring contests, and balloons, and, did I mention sugar? Well, there was candy, cotton candy, candied apples, and probably candied marshmallow candy with candy sprinkles.

I suppose with all that, we probably could have dispensed with a tractor and hitched a couple of the more hyperactive sorts to the trailer. Like, for instance, the two little miscreants who kept getting limbs and chasing people. I hate to sound like such an old coot (not really) but I do recall a time when parents would have grabbed up child and limb and used a portion of the latter to blister the bottom of the former. As it was, seeing as how their parents were much more concerned about being invisible, I was left to shout out the window of the truck for them to put the sticks down before they jabbed someone's eye out. Because, sadly enough, although their parents are all for boys being boys (and go do it somewhere where the parents won't be disturbed by it), they're also the type who would like nothing better than to find someone to blame should their precious little dears injure themselves.

::sigh:: Takes all sorts, I guess.

Anyway, no one lost a limb or eye, so I suppose everything went hunky-dory. Helped clean up some, then went and filled up the truck and brought it back, then we headed home to clean up and get ready for bed.

Next--Job and Kitties!

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 24, 2005 12:53 PM