Driving a Tractor in Goo is like Tying Your Shoes Together

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drive a tractor? A few years ago, a Ford rep for New England decided that the entire Boston autowriting corps just had to know what it was like driving a tractor, so he went about it and set it up.

On what had to be one of the coldest March days in the last millenium or two he invited the 15 or 20 people who were writing for print or televised syndication back then -- this was still PI (pre-internet/the internet was there but it was called Darpanet and it consisted of 6 DEC PDP-8s and Trixie the wonder horse) -- in Boston up to one of the oldest farmsteads on Boston's very exclusive North Shore Gold Coast to let the bunch of us older juvenile delinquents tear up a farm field on some of Ford's finest tractor iron.

At the time, I had been writing about cars for about 15 years; still had a great head of hair (what do you want, I was in my early 30s -- I'm not there now), and I thought I had driven just about everything there was to drive on wheels, including the Rolls Silver Ghost (1906 model) that was still in running condition after more than 70 years.

Not Very Warm Day

So, thinking it would be a warm day, I just threw on my overcoat, kissed my cat goodbye (Mlle. Autowriter was working) and jumped into the Jag that I was driving at the time for the hour trip to the farm fun site. Well, truth to tell, that afternoon turned quickly from an afternoon of fun to the afternoon from heck (this is a family piece, isn't it?)

I should have realized that when I stepped out of the Jag XJ that something was up when there was a wind whipping across a very, very, very, very (that's enough) muddy field at one end of which were parked several of Ford's finest examples of tractor technology, at the time.

There was a standard tractor, an all-wheel-drive tractor and a couple of other varieties that I still can't name.

This was the good part of the day. It was about to become worse as the wind freshened from a mild gale to a storm-force wind (or so it seemed because my overcoat was a spring job) and we had to get up into bicycle-like seats as we were given basic operating instructions by Ford tractor experts.

Like most autowriters, we quickly forgot the instructions and we began to get ourselves in instant trouble.

What Was I Thinking?

The first tractor I remember climbing up on and actually driving was the standard rear-drive farm buggy that you see in any movie or TV show about a farm and I succeeded in driving it up and down the mucky field (the mud was the consistency of heavy glue) while pulling some sort of farm implement -- I think it was a tiller of some sort.

Well, I thought, that was simple. I'd mastered the basic tractor so I jumped at the chance get my hands on the all-wheel-drive version. This had to be the funniest sight of the afternoon. Here were a bunch of supposedly grown men who were trying to drive an all-wheel-drive tractor across a muddy, wet, gluey field that was not only trying to draw the tractor into its depths but anyone luckless enough to be sitting in the seat of honor.

I saw one auto scribe jump up on this piece of machinery and set out to draw a perfect row down one side of the field. Well, it wasn't quite perfect and it didn't even stay in the side of the field. By the time the writer was done we were all getting seasick from watching the tractor going up and down as if it was in a heavy chop as it began to dig itself into the muck. The more the writer pressed on the accelerator pedal the worse the bucking became until he had to abandon ship and the "expert" took over. Even he couldn't get the windmilling machine from going its up-and-down thing so they eventually killed the engine and, putting a tow bar on it, pulled it to the edge of the field where it was immediately jumped on by another of Boston's intrepid band of autowriting brothers at the time.

At least, this guy made it all the way down the field and back, but it did take close to 30 minutes for a five-minute trip. We all thought he didn't want to push too hard.

Have You Ever Seen Goo Moving?

So, guess who was to try next? It was yours truly and I took my dutiful instruction, the "expert" wished me luck and I then wished I was somewhere other than a farm in Ipswich, Mass. Everything started out very nicely, I was drawing a straight furrow and I began to get a little full of myself so, what did I do, I put my foot into it a little too much and the four huge all-wheel-drive tires started slipping and digging themselves in more deeply and the tractor, itself, was doing its version of a ship riding a huge wave, as the wheels kept on digging in more deeply. And, did I mention that there was more than a little mud? It started to fly onto me, my coat, my shirt, my shoes and any other exposed part of me.

I was waved to stop by one of the "experts" by now and so there, in a field about 100 miles from where I lived at the time, I jumped down into a mess of muck that can be best described as goo that quickly sucked off one of my shoes, leaving my sock a muddy mess and it tried to remove the other one, too, but I outsmarted it and managed to get out of the field with just one shoe mucky and missing from my foot.

Not much more plowing went on that afternoon because most of us had managed to hang up one or another of Ford's finest tractor machines somewhere in the field and there were just too many sitting in the field for the experts to handle, so we were supposed to head to a nice lunch at one of the "Gold Coast's" finer establishments, but none of us really was up to it.

Most of us looked like refugees from a rugby scrum on a muddy afternoon and none of us wanted anything to do with food as the up and down motion of the tractors did tend to put our digestive tracts into uproars. Some of the guys opted to head to the local tap for a relaxer, but I just thanked my host, took the presskit, slipped the nice Jag key into the ingition and high-tailed it home because I felt as if I had the weight of the world soaked into my clothes (not the weight, just half).

One for the Records

I will say that I made one of the quickest near-100 mile trips home that I have ever made (it rivaled a 50-mile trip that I made quite rapidly some years later) so that I could get out of the muddy stuff (the cat wouldn't even talk to me until I'd showered twice) and take those showers.

So, what's the moral of this story? There really isn't one other than to say that this day certainly did "atractor" me too much, after I thought of it.

(Source: The Author)