Bringing back warm memories (8/23/04)

The dinosaur bones have finally been unearthed and carefully assembled. The excavation took months of meticulous work with tiny tools. The excavation site was lost more than once. A sister was enlisted to help with the excavation. A garden hose washed away the last remnants of the clay-colored plaster that encased the skeleton which was miraculously complete.

A Tyrannosaurus Rex stood proudly in the open air minus any organic matter. The stocky paleontologist promptly called his aunt to report the victory.

Wait a minute … plaster? Well, maybe it wasn’t plaster, but it was something similar. The bones were made of plastic and the potential paleontologist was only seven years old. He also told me that I should buy him three more of these kits for his birthday in February and which store carried the ones he wanted. I offered to let him accompany me on the shopping trip and he thought that was a great idea.

We seem to have an obsession with old things. Paleontologists, archeologists, genealogists are just a few of many professions devoted to times past. We have a need to know where we have come from and who and what has gone before us.

We also have a fascination with the objects of our youth. We associate these relics with the warm memories of days gone by even though those years may not have been the easiest ones of our lives. Time kindly dulls the harshness of the past.

This week we are surrounded by thousands of fans of antique engines and tractors. Would those be tractorologists and engineologists? Maybe they’re just people with old machines.

We had an antique tractor when I was a child. It had a crank and was cranky. Mom would turn the crank while Grandma worked the choke. I was always terrified to watch them start the beast as the crank would sometimes fly off by itself. I don’t know how it ever missed our heads. Once the machine even threatened to topple over on my grandmother but it regained its balance at the last moment and resumed climbing up the hillside to the back hayfield without much of a protest.

I don’t know the make or the year of that contraption but the thing was orange. There are probably hundreds of people in town this week who could tell me what kind it was just from that little bit of information but it really isn’t important to me.

That tractor met its ultimate demise when my brother burnt the barn down (not on purpose), otherwise it might very well be lined up with all the others of its era at the Jay County Fairgrounds.

These remnants of the past stand like soldiers waiting to be called into action. The amazing thing is that many of them still run as well as the day they were made.

Their owners coax them into action with the promise of fresh oil or maybe a new spark plug or two. They are bathed and cared for as the cherished possessions that they are. They congregate with others of their kind in silent tribute to designers of the past. They are the ultimate “guy-toy” for many.

I am not a fan of antique tractors. I am of the opinion that the machines should all be enjoying retirement by rusting away in an abandoned scrap heap where stray dogs play tag and growl at strangers.

I am in the minority as the droves of people in town for the annual gas engine and tractor show attest. They will get together with their friends and swap stories and parts while the rest of the town holds flea markets and garage sales. Lots and lots of stuff will change hands and the dinosaur bones of the past will live on in the antique engines and tractors that their fans hold dear.

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