It's Genetic!
Before writing about certain subjects on this website, we do our homework so that we present accurate information. For this page's subject, I happened upon the following medical definition in an old, tattered shop manual:
Tractorobsessiosis: (trăk´ter-ŏb-sĕs-ē-ō´-sǐs) n. Quasi-common disease affecting middle-aged males. Chronic in nature and highly contagious. Females usually immune. Latent in infant and juvenile males; becomes symptomatic within three decades. Major symptoms: tunnel-vision, narrow-mindedness, affection for one specific color; aggressiveness toward other colors. Patient prone to emit profuse explatives. Minor symptoms: dirty fingernails, flat wallet, weekend domestic absence. Not known to be fatal. Treatment: none known, none wanted. Tractorobsessiosive: adj.
Well, that's a rather clinical definition of the malady that afflicts us tractor nuts and implies that this 'disease' isn't something we're born with. No, this definition is far from correct. Just what is it that makes us so tractor crazy? Why do we obsess about them? When I’m with my brothers, it’s a rarity if any 20-minute time period doesn’t contain some talk about them. What gives?
I think I’ve figured it out. There are two ingredients for this lunacy. The first one is genetic and the other is cultural. After doing more research (very little I must say), this obsession phenomenon can be defined by this simple algebraic expression:
O(m) = (♂ x f)3 where obsession (male) = genetics x father cubed. For a female, this expression applies:
|
O(f) = |
1 |
|
(♀ x f)3 |
This tractor-loving stuff is definitely in the genes—a ‘guy thing’. You can’t tell me it is not. My sister Nancy’s youngest son it seems, came out of the womb playing with toy trucks and tractors. He would walk or crawl over other toys just to get to them. Now, I suppose that our family atmosphere is conducive to an attraction to such things, but he was too darned young to be influenced by this. I’m telling you it’s in the chromosomes.
The other ingredient is cultural. This just multiplies the effects of the genetics. I’ve spent my entire life around machinery, trucks, and tractors. Add to this mix a father that rarely missed an opportunity to tell a young boy how cool all this stuff was…well, you end up with a middle-aged man that thinks the coolest job in the world would be working at the Nebraska Tractor Test Lab. How’s that for setting one’s life goals high? For a number of years my life centered around motorcycles--they were my exclusive mode of transportation for quite some time, and I raced them for three years. A couple of years ago an old riding buddy talked me into attending a local indoor motocross event. Despite the long absence from something I loved, the great racing, and the tricked-out bikes, do you know what I thought was the coolest thing I saw that evening? It was a brand new Cat D3 dozer dressing up the track for the second round of race heats. Man, wouldn't that be cool to run that dozer in view of all these people! I'm a lost cause. I should have been thinking...man, wouldn't it be cool to race one of those hot Yamaha 4-strokes in view of all these people! Book me in a padded cell.
Exposure to a particular thing at an early age certainly imprints that on your brain. I happen to think that a Massey-Ferguson 35 is about the coolest thing on rubber. Ah! It’s just another tractor! No, not to me. Before we moved to the farm, a neighbor one block from us had a 35 that he used to plow and disk the small gardens in the area. We had a clear view of his garage across an open lot, and I remember the 35 staring at me with its bug-eyed head lamps whenever that neighbor's garage door was open. It seemed to be saying "I can SEEE you." My grandfather hired an elderly gentleman to do some major mowing and clearing on his property. I was about all of 5 to 6 years old and was with my grandfather on one of the days when the mowing was taking place. I heard loud commotion down in the woods that day. The sound increased as the rumbling mass got nearer. Out from the edge of the woods and through the weeds came a snarling, red MF-35 headed right for me much like King Kong coming after Fay Wray! When we did move to the farm, a neighbor farmer had an MF-35 Diesel Deluxe. I got to spend many hours in the seat of that neat, little, bull dog tractor. But the major MF-35 brain imprint was from Dad's Ferguson TO-35. He started a concrete contracting business in 1960 and used the 35 to move dirt and fill. The 35 had a Davis loader on it--yellow frame with a blue ribbon emblem on each loader arm. I just thought the emblem was the neatest thing. Dad's 35 was the first tractor I ever sat on. About ten years ago I experienced my first almost-fainting spell. Middle-age decrepidness? No. A fellow employee invited me to his place to look at his tractors. (Yes, my wife rolls her eyes in response to that sort of thing). There in his barn was a TO-35 with a yellow-framed, blue ribbon-emblemed loader!!!!! Katie, bar the door! Could it be...? Is it...? Naw. No way. Well...maybe? There is no doubt the seeming overexposure to Ferguson 35s at an impressionable age has influenced my opinion of them. I can spot the tell-tale mix of red and gray paint a mile away.
Recently it has occurred to me this tractor addiction is a safety hazard. Beware to thee that has the misfortune of meeting me on a country road! I'm not paying any heed to what I'm supposed to be doing. My head is like a radar antenna scanning 270 degrees for glimpses of tractors. I'm doomed.
Maybe the exact reason we fritter away so much time with these infernal creations is that for those of us fortunate enough to be around them at an early age, more often than not, a tractor was the penultimate cog in that event known as the 'rite of passage'. There comes a time when a youngster is allowed to accomplish a task using a tractor, on their own with no supervision. It is like driving the family vehicle for the first time but on a much grander scale: usually the 'first time' takes place years before one is allowed to drive the car, and that 'first time' is generally combined with a wagon or implement. And let's admit it: when you're 10 years old tractors are way cooler than any vehicle!
Science and learned individuals will always fall far short of being able to define this madness. My trivial attempts to do so will probably only be fuel for future discourse and sent to the the trash heap of mad-cap theories. I need to stop writing now. I think I hear a tractor coming down the road, and I need to........................... --Joe