Re: red vs green

Talked to an ol' boy last fall that's in the business of rebuilding Internationals and Farmalls. He told me one of my cousins that'd bought two 1066s from him over the years, had "gone green" and bought a late model JD 4x4.

After I heckled him about that a bit, he pointed out that green is the color of envy.

Nothing wrong with that, because without such wide interest, we'd all be worse off. Know lots of folks who have never done anything more useful with an old tractor, than buy it, restore it and show it off. But in my opinion, tractors are tractors, regardless of the level of involvement of the owner. Worst offenders in the puffy-chest department in my experience, are those who BOUGHT restored JDs, spend too much time braggin' on 'em and use them for nothing but a trinket.

An uncle who farmed for over 40 years with Farmalls and Internationals, was surrounded by green equipment (JD dealer right up the road). He owned JD balers, a JD combine and some other green implements...but the power was all red, except for a brief flirtation with a 2010 w/industrial loader.

He used to delight in un-sticking a green tractor too, especially with his WFE 560 gasser. Kinda miss the sound of a 2-lunger off in the distance in the summer, but not enough to actually own one. ;O)

A buddy has several self-restored JD "parade tractors": A, B, L and a couple whose model I've forgotten. He did most of his actual farm work with a 2000 series JD diesel, a little 70s-vintage Ford 3000, Oliver Super 55 and a ratty old Farmall M.

Lets the internal puffiness right out, replaces it with some external puffiness, which fortunately is always RED. ;O)

Also it miffs them that I can build a tractor bigger and better (I update them too) than theirs from a rustbucket found on a fencerow for thousands less than what they spent on their new modern green plastic and metal contraptions.

No plastic or flimsy sheetmetal on mine!