Hi All,Thought I'd relate this true-life story, which triggered my memory this morning by a post over on the implement board. I was a young man of about 22-23 or so; I was all-full of myself, cocksure and thought that I just plain knew it all. (Some say I’m still that way….. naw, that just ‘taint true!). Anyway, I just could not stand the way my dad always left those five big shiny tractors setting out in the weather all the time. It just did not make any sense, what with that big empty shop standing there almost completely empty and all. What in the world was he thinkin’ of, for chriminy sakes? It just didn’t take that much extra effort to pull those tractors inside. I took it upon myself to park them all into the big shop; got ‘em all in there with room to spare. I was sooooo darned proud of myself! This is just simply a better plan and makes more sense; less wear and tear on the things from the weather, don’t ya know. Better resale value down the road; sure, I’m right. Yep, I’m just a little smarter in this respect, no doubt about it. Well, this lasted just about 3 hours ‘til Pap came home & found out about my rearrangement efforts with the tractors. He absolutely hit the roof and came totally unstuck! Chewed me up one side and down the other. Called me a hair-brained, knot-head, useless kid and every other demeaning thing he could think of during his rage. This man was red-faced, screamin’ mad!! His main concern was fire and that if something should happen whereby a freak fire should break out, we’d loose every darned tractor on the place! In addition, those fuel barrels were setting just a few feet outside the shop wall. I tried to explain to him that the shop was built from cement block, had a cement floor and that the tractors were made of iron. What’s to burn anyway? This stuff is totally inert. How could a fire possibly ever break out in this building all on it’s own? This doesn’t make any sense; this is a complete no-brainer! His argument just didn’t hold any water viewed from my young perspective…Silly Old Man anyway!!!! No dice! Get those tractors outta here, do it now and I mean right now! Well, okay; sheepishly, I pull the goofy things outside again and park ‘em back out where they were originally setting. Fast-forward five years. Dad had since left to farm the big place up in the sky and had, somewhat reluctantly I would imagine, left me in charge of this one. You guessed it: All the tractors and every piece of equipment I could squeeze into that shop are all inside as they should be, darn it! Every night, everybody inside! No weather erosion is gonna happen on this equipment! It’s a very cold January morning and as usual, I head out to do chores and get the beasts out to feed the cattle. I open the shop door and the place is totally chock-filled with smoke!! I could hardly see my hand in front of my face, but I could just barely make out that orange flame that was just starting above the battery and under that diesel fuel tank on the 656! I had put a charger on the battery the night before and somehow it must have sparked or something and caught all that diesel-soaked dirt, packed under the cowl, on fire. This thing was taking off, big time and turning into a roaring fire. I mean roaring! That diesel fuel burns really good! Long story short, I threw open all the doors and scrambled like a madman to get the tractors outta there while at the same time trying to get the darned fire put out on that 656. After the fire was out, it dawned on me that if I had decided to have just one more cup of coffee that morning while in the warm house, we would have lost the whole darned bunch and quite possibly all the outbuildings as well because of those stinkin’ fuel barrels and their proximity to the shop. (No, because of my youthful stupidity). Thanks Dad, lesson learned. I’m a little smarter now.
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