1772, Conrad Avenue, San Jose, CA 95124
The annual national meeting of E.D.G.E. & T.A. was held at
the Cliff Koster Ranch at Tracy, California, on June 7th and 8th.
Many members showed up on Friday to set up their displays. The
weather was sunny and warm with a light breeze on Friday and
Saturday to make the temperature bearable. On Sunday it became
quite windy and dusty.
The usual do-it-yourself barbeque was held on Saturday
afternoon. Many enterprising individuals brought their own portable
barbeques anticipating a large crowd around the community pit. The
crowd was larger than expected and a few latecomers missed out on
the beans.
After the barbeque, Branch 6 held their annual business meeting.
Officers for the coming year were elected. Following the business
meeting a raffle was held. Many nice items found new owners.
Sunday morning, shortly after 8 a.m., the national meeting was
called to order by Alton Rexin. A few minutes later an airplane
circled overhead and landed in the grain field, some latecomers
arriving for the meeting. After some introductory words by Alton,
the meeting was turned over to the national president, Jack
Versteeg. Under old business a national insurance policy for all
branches of E.D.G.E. &. T.A. was discussed. Jack has been
working on the insurance problem for some time now and hopes to
have a solution by year’s end. In the mean time, he urged all
branches to stay on good terms with their present insurance
carriers.
Next, officers for the new year were elected on a white sheet,
except for the office of secretary-treasurer. Harvey Hilands said
he would like to resign from office because of his wife’s
ongoing health problems and heavy demands of a new job. His
resignation was accepted. Marvin Cairns and Menno Kliewer were
nominated. After the votes were counted, Menno was the new
secretary-treasurer. At the present time Menno is
secretary-treasurer of Branch 8, so he has good experience for this
position.
There was a very good selection of engines shown at this
meeting. The star of the show was an 1880 2 HP Otto Silent built by
Deutz of Germany. This engine is in original condition. It came
from the Ford Museum and is now owned by Greg Johnson of Santee,
California. This engine had flame ignition and was running on
hydrogen gas. It is the oldest four cycle engine in private
ownership.
Another interesting engine was a Fairbanks-Morse ‘Y’ two
cycle diesel that had been converted to a four cycle side shaft gas
engine. It was an example of some fine machine work and it ran as
well as it looked.
Branch 3 members, Harry and Pete Hudlow of Yakima, Washington,
set up a working display of various sized water rams. It isn’t
very often that you get a chance to see water rams in action.
On the model side of our hobby there was a large selection of
model engines and tractors. The engines on display ranged from
single cylinder jobs to V-8s, gas and steam to hot air types.
Saturday and Sunday Cliff Koster and Paul Reno, with helpers,
demonstrated numerous pieces of old farm equipment in the grain
field such a 1914 Harris combine pulled by a Caterpillar
‘Sixty’, an IHC separator, a 1911 single cylinder Rumely
‘Oil Pull’, a Samson ‘Sieve Grip’ tractor, a large
selection of various models of John Deeres, and many other makes of
tractors. The Draft Horse Club had horses working various old time
wagons and farm implements. A tractor parade was held Saturday
after, and was narrated by Menno Kliewer.
A count of equipment resulted in the following figures: Gas and
diesel engines 362; Hot air engines 1; Gas and diesel tractors 38;
Steam tractors 38; Model engines 24; Automobiles 3; Airplanes
3.
The 1987 National meeting will be hosted jointly by Branches 7
and 15, It was decided to have a joint meeting since Branch 7 is a
very small group with about 25 members. The meet will be held at
Antique Power Land in Brooks, Oregon in conjunction with the annual
Branch 15 show.
