OLE BETSY

BY WALT MERRELL

"O'Brrrreeeerrrrr” … the big six-cylinder Perkins diesel engine roared to life. The entire red frame of the big Massey Ferguson shook under my rear end and the floor plates vibrated to a numbing pace under my feet as the tractor transformed from a sedentary red rock, quiet and still, to a fire-breathing amber dragon billowing smoke as she roared … all with the simple twist of a key.

"Betsy" … as I affectionately refer to her – well, truth be told I affectionately referred to every truck, boat, tractor, canoe, kayak, lawnmower or other device which I could ride on or in as "Betsy." My Old Towne canoe is Betsy. My black Dodge truck is Betsy. And yes, my Massey Ferguson 4263 is Betsy. I don’t exactly know why I have such an affinity for "Betsy” … it is what it is.

This Betsy … she was a shiny, red, 1999, 100 horsepower tractor. No cab or fancy air conditioner … this Betsy was a working man’s tractor. An open cockpit so you could smell the dirt, feel the summer blaze and get stung by yellowjackets. And she was my first tractor.

Now my daddy owned several tractors on his small horse and cattle operation in Baldwin County. He harvested pecans too, but mostly used his tractors for hay and such. A Kubota and a Ford 5000 sat side by side for several years in the barn. I remember how much my 13-year-old self felt like a "man" when I climbed up on top on that big Ford. I used to volunteer to bushhog, especially out by the road.

“All the cute girls always wave to a boy on a tractor,” I’d tell myself. And they did. I’d smile big as the moon and wave like a dog’s tail as they passed by. Occasionally, I’d get a horn honk and every once in a while, some group of teenage girls might holler as they passed. On those days I could barely get my puffed-out chest and big head through the barn doors to put the tractor up. “Pretty girls and driving the tractor,” I once thought to myself, “this has to be the best day ever.”

Years later I shared some of those recollections with my dad. He laughed and remarked that he already knew of my predilection for waving at girls from the tractor, “so I got some of the girls from up the road to drive by and wave and honk, ‘cause I knew you’d keep bushhogging ‘til sundown on the hope they might come back by.” Then he belly laughed himself into a near coughing fit. At the time I thought he was joking. Surely that old man wasn’t smart enough to outwit the likes of a "man" like me … and what girl wouldn’t want to honk and wave simply out of sheer admiration. Now though, I am not so sure …

That old Kubota of his … well, let’s just say my daddy liked orange tractors before most anyone else had ever heard of Kubota. It was small … maybe a 30-horsepower tractor, with big fat turf tires on the back. I honestly don’t ever remember “working” with it, but I lost count of how many laps I made around the imaginary dirt track in the pasture … especially when the grass was still wet and the dirt still muddy from fresh rain. Of all the things my daddy did get mad at me about, he never fussed about me driving the Kubota like I was Tony Stewart at Watkins Glen.

I couldn’t drive Betsy like that though. She is too big and though she is fast … faster than the Kubota … one sharp turn and her big agricultural tires would cut deep and flip her right into a rollover. Betsy is more of a log truck than she is a racecar. Plus … I’m way too old to drive my tractor like an idiot.

I plowed my first “real” garden with Betsy. Not one ear of corn came out and the stalks looked like the variety of clowns you’d expect to find at the circus. This one tall that one short; this one with long leaves and this one with none. I sort of enjoyed bushhogging those sterile cornstalks in the fall. Gave me some satisfaction knowing that the tractor did manage to do something productive. But the next year corn grew plentiful, and for years since, so has the potatoes and onions, sunflowers and zinnias. Ole Betsy has turned many a row in her life.

And so has my father-in-law’s old John Deere. The green tractor isn’t nearly as big as Betsy, but plenty strong still. He taught me how to turn rows on that tractor. He also taught me how to log. And we’ve pulled more logs than I can count out of the woods to the Woodmizer saw-mill.

Yes sir … I’ve spent many an hour on an orange tractor, a blue tractor and a green tractor. But Betsy … she was "my" first tractor. Not my daddy's … not my father-in-law’s … but mine. And it wasn’t until I had "my" tractor that I came to appreciate what they mean for a family …

“Don’t you drop her,” Hannah yelled over the growl of the motor. Banks screamed like my hands were ice cold and she tried to lurch away from me. She was maybe six months old, and meant she was madder than a hornet. I swaddled her up in the blanket and coddled her in my left arm. I pulled her close to my chest and she tried to worm her legs back and forth against the pull of the blanket.

“Come on girl … we are going to make laps like Watkins Glen,” I whispered in her ear. She had been crying for an hour. She was going through a phase where it made her mad to fall asleep. Hannah was nearing her wits' end that afternoon. When she came out on the back porch of our tiny farm house, I knew she was spent. I throttled the tractor down to idle and shifted it out of gear. Hopping down I walked over to the porch and said, “Come on, I have a plan.” Bewildered, and probably mad that I didn’t take the baby from her immediately, I said, “Follow me” and led her back to the still growling tractor. I climbed back up to my seat and held my hands out … “Hand her to me.” And she did, with the admonition I mentioned earlier about not dropping the baby.

I shifted Betsy into a lower gear and eased off the clutch. We crawled forward at no more than a dog’s trot. Banks settled down a little as the world started passing her by. I steered out into the pasture, and we made our first turn. The tractor bumped and burped along, never absorbing any of the divots or holes her wheels found. And with each jolt, Banks head rested heavier and heavier on my chest. By turn three of our four-mile-an-hour racetrack, Banks’ eyes were closed and by the time I did the second figure eight, she was sound asleep and limp as a wet noodle.

I drove around the pasture for another 30 minutes as Hannah watched from the swing on the back porch.

My arm was cramping but I fought through the discomfort, knowing that Hannah was enjoying the peace and the scenery. I laughed at myself as we passed near the house, and she waved and blew me a kiss …. “Still got it,” I chuckled. I grinned from ear to ear and said out loud, “Cute girls like boys on tractors.”

Betsy has been a good tractor. She still is. We still plant with her and do our food plots. Once, Bay got my truck axle deep stuck in the mud and ole Betsy pulled it right on out. Cape still likes to drive Betsy around sometimes too. Banks has a time or two as well. That old John Deere is still around too. We use her pretty regular also … but not for the big jobs. And we added a little orange to the mix too with a Kubota mini excavator. Cape can run it better than most operators I know.

Those tractors have a lot of miles on them. A lot of hours too, turning rows and plowing fields all so we can feed our stomachs. But they are so much more than machines, because best of all we’ve made a lot of memories on those tractors … and that feeds the soul.

Walt Merrell writes about life, family and faith.  An avid hunter and outdoorsman, he enjoys time “in the woods or on the water” with his wife Hannah, and their three girls, Bay, Cape and Banks. They also manage an outdoors-based ministry called Shepherding Outdoors.  Follow their adventures on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube at Shepherding Outdoors.  You can email him at shepherdingoutdoors@ gmail.com.