Stories of Grandpa Gano

Dad had just bought a deisel Ford tractor that became his pride and joy. There was one problem..no one to help him in the fields when he had to get supplies or milk the cows..He came to me one day and told me to come along with him he was going to teach me how to drive the tractor..That was a pretty big task considering I still did not have my drive's license.

He climbed up onto the seat and had me come up beside him and sit on the fender telling me to hold on tight and watch what he did. He had already plowed the field and disced it once but it need the clods knocked down some more. I watched him closely while hanging on to my bucking perch. He placed the tractor in gear, lowered the hydrolic bar that secured the disc and pulled the gas lever down and around the field when when, when he came to the end of the field he reversed the procedure: lifted the disc, pushed up the gas lever and swung the tractor around to make the next pass. We got to the end of the row where we had started and he stopped and told me to trade places with him . There was about 100feet left on the row and the wire fence was just ahead.

It was now Dad's turn to hang on tight and I continued the discking as I had seen dad do. Then I came to the end of the field. With great expertise I levered the hydrolic up, pushed the lever .....down, just the opposite of what I was too do. This sent the big deisel racing toward the fence and without the drag of the disc I was movin' fast. I stomped with both feet on the breaks, throwing my self almost over the steering wheel! Sure that I had thrown dad off the tractor I was relieved and scared to see him still hanging on for dear life. Then there was the tractor..the brand new headlight was hooked into the wire fencing which was leaning over precariously under the frount tire.

Fearfully I looked at dad, sure he would yell at me to get off and go to the house. There was a long pause, then dad said, "Daughter, do you think you can back this tractor up without pulling of the headlight?" I could only nod in an afirmative, I slowly edged off the fence with the headlight slipping out from under it's clutches. I braked again and put the tractor in neutral preparing to get off and let Dad finished the job.. To my surprise it was Dad that got off and just said over the shoulder, "Finish the job, come in when it is done."

Dad had me working for him on the farm for most of the summer. I could do a mean job of plowing, discing and harrowing (there's another story there) but when dad had me use the cultivator I tore up more corn and weeds...I became quite the farmer's daughter.