Re: OT....How young is to young to be on a tractor?

Posted by john d on January 01, 2003 at 12:43:55 from (152.163.188.71):

In Reply to: OT....How young is to young to be on a tractor? posted by John (SC) on January 01, 2003 at 06:49:50:

Depends of course, on the kid, the tractor, and the circumstances.

I occasionally rode with my Dad on the '43 Farmall H when I was only 2 or 3 years old. Not much, just enough to "feel special" and I had one job when doing that - to "kick the switch" when shutting the tractor off. (I'm 58 now, and I can still hear my Dad say "Kick the switch! every time I shut off one of my old Farmalls!)

By the time I was 7, I was raking hay with a Farmall B. By 8, I was cultivating corn with the H while Dad followed close by on the B. By 12 I was running a mounted cornpicker on an M. Looking back, it was probably more danger than I'd want one of my grandkids exposed to, but nearly everthing we did in the 1950's was more dangerous than its counterpart today. Riding in a car in those days was pretty dangerous by comparison with transportation today.

One key element in the situation you describe is the presence of spectators who don't always use good sense about where to stand or walk when around machinery. I don't think I'd put a kid that age on a tractor where anyone could possibly walk into its path. In addition to the tractor pulling example, I sometimes shudder when I go to a big antique equipment show and see pre-teen kids tooling around on tractors in the midst of pedestrian traffic. I saw this more than once at the Red Power show in Illinois last summer.

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