Searching sea of John Deere green

You’ve heard about searching for a needle in a haystack.
How about a John Deere?
It was Sunday afternoon, and the clouds that had threatened rain were blowing over.
The Jay County Fairgrounds was already bustling with activity. Engines were being unloaded. Some were already running. Friendships were being renewed, and new friendships were being launched.
Dust was rising, and so was the temperature.
One section on the east side of the fairgrounds was a sea of yellow, as Milt Bergman and his family set up an astounding display of Minneapolis-Moline equipment.
But I wasn’t looking for yellow.
I was looking for green.
A few days earlier, I’d set out in search of the surviving charter members of the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Association who were expected to be on hand for this year’s show.
I’d already had a good interview with Tom Sommer down at his place not far from Deerfield in Randolph County.
Two others I knew of — Lynn Palmer and his brother Stan — were expected to be at the show. Stan, who lives in Fort Wayne, wasn’t likely to be there until Saturday.
But I’d learned that Lynn was already on the grounds.
My old buddy Steve McKee had been playing detective trying to get me in touch with Lynn since the middle of last week. Steve lives in Churubusco these days, and so — I was told — does Lynn.
There was no phone listing, however, so I sent an email to Steve to see if he could use small town networking to help me make contact.
Despite Steve’s best efforts, however, he came up empty. Lynn, it appeared, had left the Churubusco area and was on his way to Jay County.
So on Sunday I set out to find him.
Jack Rouch, the current Tri-State president, and Al Confer, his predecessor in the president’s job, confirmed that Lynn Palmer was on the grounds.
Al even gave me excellent directions to his camper.
But after a hike into the campgrounds, I came up empty as well.
Lynn, I was told by a woman at the camper, was out on his John Deere, driving around the show as it was taking shape.
“What kind of hat is he wearing?” I asked, lamely, in hopes that would provide a clue.
White, she thought.
So there I was, wandering 80 acres already occupied by hundreds of tractors and probably a few thousand people, looking for a guy wearing — maybe — a white hat and riding on a John Deere tractor.
A needle in a haystack would have been easier.
A line of tractors stretched out on Morton Street to county road 100. Most of them, it seemed, were John Deere green.
In the distance, clear across the grounds, one of the drivers of a John Deere appeared to have a white hat on. Or maybe not.
Sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses. I abandoned the hunt, at least for the moment, and went to work on Plan B.[[In-content Ad]]