Dayton Daily News & Radio’s ‘Joe’s
Journal’
Spark Pluggers from five states throughout the midwest and
beyond congregated in one mighty horde at Portland, Indiana —
there to wind up their antique gas engines, tractors and classic
coupes, thence to sort of un-wind their winding arms while basking
in the pollution thereof.
Some twelve-thousand strong crashed the gates at the Jay County
Fairgrounds to waddle reminiscently ‘mongst the four-hundred
eleven popping and banging gas engines while creaking,
centipede-like tractors of yesteryear clattered and groaned at
flopping leather belts hitched to sawmills and separators at the
other end.
‘WOW — is this a show!’ exclaimed one lanky,
long-legged lad from down Ol’ Kaintucky-way as he set foot on
Jay County soil and proceeded to survey the melee’. ‘So
much here I won’t ever get to see it all.’
But being the biggest antique gas engine tractor show in the
midwest was not the only goal sought by the director-and planners
of the Tri-State Association. For along with the vast outlay of
internal combustion assemblage of yesteryear there were the many
other associated exhibits of educational value, all reflecting a
golden age of American ingenuity and inventiveness just past.
While brawny arms heaved on heavy flywheels and yanked on cranks
to set antiquated pistons into motion, sawing lumber, threshing
wheat and grinding meal, others hawked and demonstrated their wares
of early Americana to the evident curiosity and satisfaction of
all. Against the steady background din of internal combustion
four-cycle, two-cycle hit-and-miss or what-have-you exhaustings,
there could be heard the more refined whirr of the ancient spinning
wheel, the ticking of antique watches and the raucous blare of
old-time radio squawking from vintage horns of the early twenties
while agile fingers plucked romantic ditties from the strings of
out-dated autoharps exhibited nearby.
At Tri-State Show, Portland, Indiana, last year, Doc
Schwanderman’s ;antique watch display was so popular he decided
this year to fetch along a box of crackers and ring o’ boloney
so he could stay on the job. He also brought along his cot so he
could stay on the job and keep vigil over his 500 rare watches,
rather than tote them home each night.
It was three days of pure pleasure, forgetting the mad, mad
modern world and revelling in the mem’ries of the past at the
Tri-State Antique Gas Engine & Tractor Reunion. No aspirins or
modern, high-powered pills required to soothe frazzled nerves or
calm upset tummies — all by-products of an otherwise whirligig
world gone mod. For there is a certain, undeniable reassurance in
the bygone that is noticeably lacking in the present. A reassurance
that became contagious as the big steam engine boiler simmered over
the slab-wood fire, making steam for the copper ‘kittles’
while the womenfolk pared apples which were cut into schnitz for
the making of Uncle Charlie Ditmer’s special steam engine apple
butter. And there was downright fun injected into the homey scene
by the Spark Plug husbands who ‘stole’ some of President
Woody Turner’s antique applepeelers from his exhibit to
generously ‘help out’ with the womanly chores.
Modern psychologists and political sociologists blame all our
troubles on a so-called ‘generation gap’ — and quite
possibly so. For the parents who got in on the last of the past,
before it ceased to be, are acquainted with things that their
children are not. But at such as Tri-State the lads go along with
their dads, building bridges betwixt the two. All of which explains
why a thirteen-year-old, such as Don Marker of Richmond, Indiana,
is quite conversant with the things of Granddad’s world that
made America great.
‘That boy of mine loves these old tractors so much, he kept
bothering the men to let him run theirs so I decided I ‘d try
and get him one of his own,’ muses Kenneth Marker who always
fetches a few antique engines to Gasoline Alley each year.
‘Finally I bought up this model of an old Mogul Tractor which
Kenny Rismiller built with an old one-cylinder gas engine. He likes
it so well, when one man offered to trade him a $1600 12-horsepower
tractor with all attachments, like new, for it, he said, ‘You
go jump in a crick. I can take this tractor to the reunions and
drive it but I couldn’t yours.’
It was one of the fixtures at Tri-State Reunion, this year,
watching the u-biquitous Don Marker who was almost two places at
once — driving his simulated half-size Mogul Tractor model,
manipulating the hand-throttle and reverse like a real veteran of
yesteryear on ‘Uncle John’s’ farm. The creaking and
groaning of the single-belt slip-clutch, designed in the Rismiller
woodshed shop, lending even more nostalgia than the prototype which
Spark Plug Tommy Lewis was driving over the grounds.
‘We get a bang out of Don and his little Mogul,’ laughed
President of Tri-State, Woody Turner. ‘His family came a little
early and, you know, Don drove ten gallons of gas through that
little tractor before the show even opened up. He drove down to
where some of us were cleaning up the grounds for the sawmill,
wanting to help out with the work, so I just told him to hitch onto
one of those tree limbs and drag it out. Was he ever pleased to
lend us a hand.’
And, too, it was no little honor for Don Marker to head up the
big Tri-State parade which packed the Jay County race track
coliseum to a capacity of 2500 who watched the passing Americana of
old-time gas tractors, wagons of antique gas engines, steam
threshers, and the long parade of classic, early-American
automobiles all rehabilitated to a glistening sheen.
One of the great new attractions added to the Tri-State Reunion
agenda by President Woody Turner this year was that almost
forgotten segment of old-time American country life known as the
fiddler’s contest.
At Tri-State ’70 Show Don Marker drives his model Mogul
one-lung tractor. His dad bought it from Kenny Rismiller who made
it, simply to keep Don from heckling other Spark Pluggers to run
their tractors. Don had so much fun driving it around (almost two
places at once), that he burned up ten gallons of ‘company
gas’ before the show even got started. But he earned his keeps,
dragging a tree limb around for President Woody Turner.
At Tri-State ’70 Show, old-time radios proved quite popular
— but where were Lum ‘N Abner, Amos ‘N Andy and Ma
Perkins?
15 year old Ted Davis, farm lad turned electrical genius,
repairs old time squawkers and gets ’em to working. From
crystal sets to one and two-tubers, on through super heterodynes –
Ted had ’em all perkin’. (The stiff katy is not an antique
– neither is Ted.) But he did put on his best Sunday smile when the
camera pointed his way.
‘We’ll put out the call for old-time fiddlers and see
what comes of it,’ said Woody. And what came of it was ten
bowmen from as far away as one hundred miles, all of them fetching
their bows ‘n fiddles on which they fiddled the old-time
fav’rites of yesteryear — Arkansas Traveler, Mocking Bird,
Hornpipe, Turkey In The Straw and others, world without end. Tunes
that young and old liked so well they almost split the sides of the
race-track amphitheatre with applause while Bob Seavers of WOWO Ft.
Wayne, Indiana, ’emceed’ the agenda of performing
fiddle-tuners and their repertoires.
In fact the sheer fun of old-time fiddlin’ spilled over into
the horse barns, after the fiddlin’ contest ended, where
hangers-on lingered spellbound at the genuine barn-dance that
transpired with clown, Shorty Hudson, pulling his antics while
steam engineer, Dave Sullivan, of Mechanicsburg, Ind., pounded the
‘pie-anna.’
For the many hundreds of memorabilia collectors at Tri-State,
there were the unique exhibits of old-time battery-powered radios
— everyone repaired (and working) by 15 year old Ted Davis, a farm
lad genius in early-day audio electronics. Although we heard
antique tin and paper-mache loudspeaker horns squawking, as in the
olden days — our ears pined for the old-time soap operas and
15-minute supper-time re-hashes of such as Lum ‘n Abner, Amos
‘n Andy, Ma Perkins and the like. But nevertheless we were
satisfied and forgiving.
The crowds that filed past Doc Schwanderman’s huge
collection of antique American watches was so great last year that
he said, ‘Next year I’m going to take along a box of
crackers and a ring o’ boloney so I won’t have to take time
out for lunch.’
And that he did, even to the point of fetching along his cot so
he could stretch out and keep 24 – hour vigil beside his priceless
watch cases.
‘Thought I’d best sleep with the watches,’ quoth
Doc, ‘rather than having to pack up five hundred cases and
works each night and taking ’em home with me.’
Spark Plug Sam Schnurr displays his unusual electric interurban
car. Two years ago we had a picture of him working on his
two-cylinder Detroit gas engine (right). This year he had also
built a generator and little electric car which was running off the
generated current — nice doin’ Sam’l. (Don’t know the
man to right, but it looks like ‘George-do-it’ Schwanderman
peering at left.)
At Tri-State ’70 Show the brawny-biceped Roe Cook was busy
heat-tempering a mare’s shoe which he had just pulled from his
blacksmith forge.
Interspersed among the antique gas engines and tractors that
stretched as far as the eye could see were those
‘nit-pickin’ model makers who always enhance a historical
reunion by the wonderful models they meticulously fabricate. There
was ‘Ol Needle Eye’ of Spark Plug fame who had brought
along his latest model of a Stickney Engine. Two years ago we had
taken his ‘pitcher’ drawing scale plans from Spark Plug
Marion Ertle’s prototype Stickney in The Darke County
Threshers’ Gasoline Alley. At the Tri-State Reunion we saw the
finished model — a veritable gem of perfection which James Maloney
ran alongside the real Stickney just to show how perfectly it
functioned like the original. To my ears and eyes, the Stickney
model was perfection in itself — for Spark Plug Maloney, who does
not use common castings or pre-fab parts, always fabricates his
models from solid stock, even making his own tiny hex-bolts with
metric threads, while such refinements as miniature water pumps and
oilers equal the craftsmanship of the watchmaker’s guild.
At Tri-State ’70 Show – the greatest number of gas engines
and tractors, as far as the eye could see.
One of the really unusual model exhibits was displayed by Spark
Plug Sam Schnurr from up Alvordton, Ohio-way. We saw the model
two-cylinder Detroit Gas Engine, which he was pictured working on
two years ago, actually hooked up to a small electric generator he
designed, and together they were generating enough electricity to
run the tiny interurban electric car that Sam designed in his
cornfield workshop. (How ’bout a ride, Sam?)
And, adding to the early American quaintness of the Tri-State
Show, ‘neath the spreading chestnut tree the village smithy
stood. The brawny-biceped Roe Cook was busy heat-tempering a
mare’s shoe which he had just pulled from his blacksmith forge
with a pair of soot-black forceps. Even the cotton-candy man, Ray
Winthrop, gave up his stand to help out, but he wasn’t sure
which side of the shoe you put the horse on.
When Sunday morning church-time arrived, the big Tri-State Show
paused, as it always does each year, to give time to recognize and
worship the Creator of all. The old-time hymns were sung, the
old-time religion preached by the Rev. Lillie Mote, chaplain, and
the old-time collection plates were passed to the tune of clanking
coins in fundamental country fashion.
Not only did Tri-State 70 outdo all previous years in the number
of antique gas engines and tractors exhibited, but also as a
well-rounded-out show with an appeal to every walk of life it was
the best ever.
‘Our Tri-State Show is so big this year I ‘m almost
afraid to talk about it,’ chuckled George Schwanderman, better
known as ‘Let George do it,’ around the grounds.
To President Woody Turner and all his helping ‘George
do-its,’ the board of directors and planners, as well as the
hundreds of unnamed Spark Pluggers who dragged their prize engines
and tractors to make Tri-State 70 the greatest, most diversified,
we doff the Spark Plug katy and say ‘Well done, boys. We know
you’ll do it again and again.’
And now a big, wide niche in the Spark Plug Hall of Fame for all
who made it so — bridging a generation gap by preserving our great
American heritage.
At Tri-State ’70 Show, ‘Ol’ Needle-eye’ (James
Maloney of Indianapolis, Ind.) shows off with his precision model
of a Stickney gas engine. The model which is a beauty in
perfection, ran alongside the original from which it was modeled
and fired right along with it. Maloney, a retired instrument maker
for the navy, fabricates all parts from solid stock, even his own
metric threads and tiny hexagon bolts. He also makes the tiny water
pumps and oilers that are used in his models.
At Tri-State ’70 Spark Pluggers vied with womenfolk at
peeling apples for Uncle Charlie Ditmer’s special steam engine
apple butter. But it looks like Spark Plugs Wayne Whitenack and
Marion Ertle ‘stole’ a couple of Woody Turner’s antique
apple peelers to catch up.
At Tri-State ’70 the Old-time Fiddler’s contest boiled
over into a genuine all night barn dance at the horse barns. Clown
‘Shorty’ Hudson is at his special drums which cost him only
35 cents in plastic cast-off lids and pans. Steam engineer, Dave
Sullivan of Mechanicsburg, Indiana, bangs chors on the old upright
‘pie-anna.’