Re: Farmer fixes
Not necessarily a model A but I remember dad shimming under the inserts on his 1945 flathead with newspaper. He had to do this to keep the old truck running so he could run a couple loads of logs into the mill so he could afford a new set of bearings. A few weeks later everyone was fascinated by the fact you could read the print that was imbedded into the insert. Of course you had to hold the inserts up to a mirror to read them. My dad was 9 years old when the depression hit and everything that had to be fixed was repaired with whatever was on the farm. I always felt so sorry for Mom because that depression style of living still needed to go on until the mid '60's. Our yard was always full of throwaway junk that had to be held onto just in case he ever needed something. Wearing the hand me down clothes and eating food that came from the people who were on welfare because the govt gave them free food called commodities that we couldn't get because the Dad was working was tough. We had our own chickens, milk cow and raise beef calves and hogs to feed ourselves. And I watched Dad make everything work. I watched him pull the rod and piston out of a 216 cu in engine out of a '47 chevy and pound a stick of stove wood into it in order to run it until he could find a '39 engine to put into it. He'd fix radiators by dumping pepper and raw eggs into it. We use to build a fire under the old F14 tractor to get it to run in the winter time. He used the rear end out of a ford car to make a winch on the logging truck and used the brakes to hold the spool so the cable wouldn't unwind and drop the log until you wanted it to. The lever for the brake came off of an old horse drawn sickle mower. He drove the winch with the power take off on the truck. Cracks in the fenders were welded up and broken windows weren't replaced. Stumps were taken out with dynamite that you bought at the hardware store. And it's time for me to quit or i'll be here going on forever. And yes those were the good old days.
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