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Friday’s Excuse Why I Went to Bed Early on New Year’s Eve


Friday’s Excuse Why I Went to Bed Early on New Year’s Eve

The blog entries have been behind schedule the past few days thanks to holidays and Freiburger’s flakiness. I thought I’d use all that as a reason to skip the traditional Friday Excuse to Go Home Early and Drink entry and instead tell you why, on New Year’s Eve, I was in bed by 10 PM. My 28-year-old self was snoring while a nearly petrified Dick Clark was partying hard. My ass had been kicked by a combo of Mother Nature and pre-war iron, but damn if I didn’t love the fight.

A couple months ago I had a tire blow out on my old mongrel tractor that I play around with and use to plow my driveway in the winter. In looking for the correct tire, I wasted about two weeks before finding a vendor on eBay selling the ones I wanted. Once I got the tire I couldn’t find anyone who would mount a tire on an old split rim. In the mean time I had disassembled the rearend of the tractor to replace axle bearings, seals, and overhaul the brakes.

I took my sweet time looking for parts. Then my wife had a baby. Then we had two feet of snow and the machine was up on the jackstands…outside.

I hit the parts trail again with a renewed zeal learning the hard way that old three quarter and one-ton truck parts are about 10 times more expensive than old half-ton truck parts and twice as hard to get. As the tractor uses a rearend out of an old Ford F-2 truck, so I was stuck looking for heavy-duty stuff. The brake shoes took three different suppliers with the first two taking two shots and getting the wrong junk. The third guy had them on the shelf for twice the price. Wheel cylinders were 42 bucks a piece. Seriously. I shopped around and that was the cheapest; another guy wanted $74.00 a piece. Same parts for an F-1 were about 10 bucks a whack.

So I got the parts and my last hurdle was finding a tire shop willing to deal with the split rim and I found them exactly two days before this week’s blizzard was scheduled to hit. The shop manager initially told me that he was very skeptical of the old rims and if a condition existed that would jeopardize anyone’s safety in terms of the wheel and the ring he was going to call me and tell me it was a no go. Luckily it was a go.

The storm came at Seven AM even though it was slated to start at nine-thirty or ten. It was well below 30 degrees and I began reassembling the rearend. I was torquing lug nuts when the first flakes flew. Then I was called away by a pseudo family emergency.

When I returned, the tractor had 3-4 inches of snow on it and it was coming down at about an inch an hour with high winds and ever dropping temps. Perfect weather to operate an open vehicle in. “Samsonite” can suck it.

Excited at the prospect of playing with my toy, I neglected to put on any type of snow gear. I was sporting my winter hat, sweatshirt, a couple t-shirts, some workpants, and my logging boots.

I climbed aboard the tractor and hit the starter button only to hear the motor make about have a revolution and stop. ARGH.

Blinded by fury, I skipped right over the fact that the battery was dead and thought the starter (which I rebuilt…even I don’t trust my own work) was dead so I set to removing the starter. In doing so I lost my grip on it and managed to wreck one of the 68-year-old connectors on the power wire.

I’ve read the US Army survival guide and one thing I remembered was them telling soldiers to weigh their level of discomfort against what it would be if they were captured by the enemy. Considering that, I decided to fix everything outside rather than explain myself trudging down into my cellar past my wife and curious two year old.

I’m repairing and checking things as the snow is literally piling up around me. The guy next door with the snow blower is shooting snow like there is no tomorrow and next thing I know he’s asking me if he should do my driveway. I said no, then mumbled some swear words at him as I was reassembling the starter.

I climbed back on the machine, hit the button, and nothing. I pretended not to see my wife gesturing out the window and yanked the battery out of my pickup truck, bolted it in, and the thing starts like it’s the summer of 1941 again.

Now I’m a man on a mission to show Mr. Snow Blower what a real machine is so I spin the tractor out of my driveway, shove it into low gear and plow him out, launching some snow at him off the side of the plow on the way by.

I’m having so much fun doing my driveway, and all my neighbors’ places that I never realized it was pitch black outside and jeez if my legs felt funny in a numb sort of way. After scraping my own drive a few times, I backed in the tractor and shut down the barky little flattie-four that powers it. It was then I realized that all of my clothing was encrusted in ice and my legs were feeling kind of hot, which even I knew is a sign that you’ve entered frost bite county. Then there was my posterior. Several hours on the metal seat had rendered it an ice block.

I went inside, realized that the kids were in bed, cringed when I heard my wife coming, got an earful, and then asked if it was possible to get a frost bitten ass. She told me I was. Well, FYI, it is. Turns out that the temps with the wind chill was about 5-10 below zero when my simple mind was playing Mr. Plow.

After taking a shower and sitting on the couch to “party in the New Year”, I needed toothpicks to hold my eyelids open. I looked out the window at my plowed drive and those of my neighbors, smiled a little, and went to bed…on my stomach.

Can’t wait for the next one.

'41 Worthington tractor  


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