Marlene Schnell Box 330, Irrigon, Oregon 97844
It was one of those late summer days when you know fall and the
first frost is soon to come. The haying season and the irrigation
was over for another year. Now there should be enough time to do a
couple of handsprings and sit down and pet the dog or take a walk
to see what you had been too busy to see. But this is not the
case.
Deere hunting season opens tomorrow in Oregon, so Marlete and I
will start by heading for the coast.
It’s an unwritten law. The people from the coast must drive
to Eastern Oregon, and we in the East must go West.
We packed the ‘Ghost’ and headed West from Irrigon along
the Columbia River at 10:00 AM Saturday for whatever was to come.
(The Ghost is a gray, 1966 Plymouth four door sedan-the kind that
you can leave the keys in and be confident that it will be there
when you come back.)
As this was to be a leisure hunt, the first order of business
was to stop at The Lone Pine at The Dalles for lunch. My experience
has taught me that if you treat your cook to whatever she likes, it
increases your chances for going a next time.
Heading West at Mosier, I noticed four old tractors lined up in
a yard. Must be a sensible person so will stop and talk
sometime.
Going on West past Rowena, Marlene spotted an LA John Deere with
a mower on it. Looks like it’s still in use, so didn’t
inquire.
Our intentions were to head to the coast and visit our daughters
for a couple days. Then we could pretend that we were from the
coast and could come to Eastern Oregon to hunt. The Deeres seem to
keep better in the dry desert of Eastern Oregon.
We visited our youngest daughter, Lori at Monmouth and our
oldest daughter, Susan at Eugene. We bought them each a couple of
meals, as we know college people like eating when someone else is
paying.
From Eugene we headed East over the Willamette Pass to LaPine
and then to Fort Rock.
At Fort Rock we had an in-the-car picnic lunch and watched the
final touches being put on some crops. Then we continued on our way
so we could get to Burns before dark.
The next morning we checked out an old model D by the grain
elevator at Burns and some old model A’s and B’s at the
wrecking yard in Hines. This, of course, whetted our appetites, so
it was on to the Silver Sage for breakfast.
The next couple of days were typical head-bobbing days:
straining to see what’s behind a bush or behind a shed, or for
a glimpse of an exhaust pipe or wheel to tell you there is more if
you probe.
We concluded the hunt by going East from Burns to Vale, North to
Unity, Durkee, Baker and West to Pendleton and back to Irrigon. All
this without bagging a thing!
It was to our family’s for Thanksgiving a couple weeks later
at Vancouver, Washington.
While Marlene and her mother were visiting, I slipped down to
see an old neighbor, Karl Bakker. He usually insists that I take
some tractor magazines off his hands and I’m too polite to turn
him down.
Karl is the kind of friend a collector needs. He has a couple of
nice Ford cars and a W-30 McCormick Deering, but seems to have no
desire to expand. So, what he locates is up for grabs!
Karl started, ‘I know where there is a John Deere GP. Vern
Loy has one that he will sell or trade. He lives on Kramer’s
old place. It came off of Prune Hill.’
By then I knew it was the one my folks had sold thirty years
ago. I remember driving it some thirty-five years ago. The sound of
the steady, mellow exhaust, the smell of the stove oil and the most
true, blue smoke rings come to mind. Most would float and expand
into oblivion, while occasional wild ones raced skyward and
vanished in a puff.
Then there was the neighbor’s dog, Teddy, who would suddenly
appear when the engine came to life and fall in beside the tractor
and follow as if held in position by small invisible wires.
I knew I must have it and as the irrigation company in Irrigon
had all my money, a trade was in order.
I like to trade only items that I have duplicates of and items
of approximate equal value. So, I proposed to trade a Lindeman
crawler that Marlene and I fetched off a mountain at Hayden Lake,
Idaho, (one hundred yards with a powerpull)
Vern readily agreed to the deal and he also included a
three-point hitch adapter as a bonus.
After the negotiations were finalized (this can be a time
consuming process because you must be courteous and examine all the
other treasures the person has and listen to the related stories),
it was time to make use of contacts. (Contacts are people who are
foolish and will do things for you just because you ask them.) My
brother, Louis, lives on the old home farm not more than
one-quarter of a mile from where the tractor was located, so he was
selected to fetch it and store it until all the conditions
indicated GO.
When G Day arrived, we mounted Ol’ Rusty (short for Old and
Rusty), a 1949 Chevrolet 1 ton truck, and headed for Vancouver. A
few miles down the road the tires warmed up and rounded out. The
humping motion and door rattling reduced into a steady whine of
gears, valve train and exhaust noises.
The next morning with chains and binders strung tight, we turned
East for Irrigon. Even Ol’ Rusty must have had a good feeling,
as he seemed to lengthen his stride for home.