Carpentering for the Carpenter

There it was! My first tractor. Well, it wasn't all mine! I owned it in an un-equal partnership with my twin brother. You see, some tines he had a 51% share and sometimes I did! We got is brand new from the local dealership. We were so proud of it. We towed wagons with it. We farmed with it, using the two-bottom plow our brother Bill had made to attach to the three-point-hitch. We used it on the farm for many years. Then when we left and Bill stayed, his sons began using it. And now a grand son, my grandnephew, Calvin Gerald Turner is putting it to good use.

I took a quick trip this past weekend to Thorhild, Edmonton and finally on to the home farm. It was about a 700-mile round trip. At the farm, I brought my car into the shop to change the thermostat (something important in northern climes!).

And there it was in the shop! A little different than it looked that day Ted and I first saw it some 40 odd years ago. Our John Deere 720. Although the three-point-hitch had been removed, and with a new set of narrow front tires and a shiny new green and yellow paint job, it still had the original two-cylinder engine.

There it was in the shop, up on the bench, the 1:16 scale toy Ted and I had gotten for our 8th or 10th birthday (somewhere in there). The replacement front tires had been skillfully caved out of a piece of truck mud flap by brother Bill so his sons, Chris and Quentin, could continue to play with it. The paint job Bill had given it was authentic John Deere green and yellow. But the large rear wheels were another story. At some point they had been reattached with a home made bolt, another one of Bill's great inventions. Somewhere along the way the steering wheel had broken off, but Quentin had welded on a little lever so his son could still maneuver it. But the rear wheels were broken around the hub and wobbled severely. (No fear, I'm sure Bill will weld them up for his grandson, and even add a splash of that authentic yellow paint.)

When my Dad, the late Calvin William Turner, bought that tractor for us twins, he never knew the joy it would bring to three generations of farm boys to say nothing of the fond memories it brought back to this old boy. And to think that for its whole life it never ventured more than a hundred yards from the sandbox where a pair of strong willed lads first fought over it!