The Grill Story

The question most people ask me is, "What prompted you to build this?" The answer is Not a simple one. It all must have started when I was a kid growing up on the farm. There were old tractors on the place that ranged from a Ford Jubilee to a U Moline with a hand clutch. There were two F-20 Farmalls, a W-30 and a WK-40 McCormick-Deering. I can still smelll the "drip" gas that was used for fuel. Seems like all we used were three old Moline one-ways and a nine shank Graham-Hoeme chisel with a manual lift levers. Chester Cox sharpened the discs and made the plows much easier to pull. The Jubilee was replaced with a 404 International. Something happened to the clutch on the old WK-40. Jack Roddy came to the Tucker place to pick it up. Jack tightened the winch line and the old beast came off the ground on one end. One adjustment later, he raised the tractor up and Mr. Roddy left with the truck's front wheels barely touching the road.
International Harvester used magnetos for the ignition in nearly all of their old tractors. One time Dad and I went out to the old Tom Craddock place south of Lake Kemp. The cattle had chewed the wires off an old F-20. Dad sent me to the farmhouse to retrieve an old lamp cord.; When I brought the lamp cord back, he handed me a pocketknife and told me to go cut some small mesquite branches to whittle down to hold wires in the mag. I watched as he secured the wires in the mag with pieces of the wood. He unscrewed the nuts from the top of the spark plugs and attached the lamp cord to them in firing order. He turned on the gas and pulled the choke. That old tractor fired right up with the first pull of the hand crank. Now Dad can take electricity, but I can't. He reached over and got hold of my left ear with one hand and the spark plug with the other. Folks, that is the main reason I work on diesel engines. They don't have spark plugs!

 

In the summer of 1965, the farm purchased two 930 Case Comfort King tractors. They were huge to me since I was only nine years old at the time. Canvas buggy tops were put on these tractors for shade. Let's see if I can recall the plow hands. Bob & Bill Elliott, Ricky Styles, Mike and Mitch High and a few others I can't remember. Kaven Stout and I became the two plow hands as we became older. We whipped and spurred on those two tractors until we were blue in the face and sun burned, too, We had 1835 acres to farm. One of the places that the ranch leased was the Fancher place, which is about two miles north of the Mary's Creek schoolhouse. At the end of the workday, we had to grease and fuel both 930 Cases. This was before tube grease was popular so we had an old pump can. My cousin, Kaven, was filling his grease gun when the head came off the grease gun. He was splattered with grease, mad and thoroughly upset with the whole world. Kaven hollered and threw that grease gun with every ounce of strength he could muster. The grease gun flew though the air in a perfect arc only to hit the door glass in Jack's new blue pickup. I saw my Dad slip Kaven a $50 dollar bill and tell him it was okay and not worry about it. This must have been Dad's way of saying he didn't like a pump can either.