128 Navy Lane, Atco, New Jersey 08004
I was six years old in 1989 when I got my tractor. It is a 1963
Sears Custom 7 and it has a kind of interesting story to go with
it. This tractor was bought new by my grandfather complete with a
mower and snow blade attachment. My dad still remembers the day the
big box came to his house with the brand new shiny red and white
tractor. My grandfather and my dad used that tractor for 10 years
to mow grass and push snow, but by then it was getting pretty beat
up. My grandfather bought a new one and the old one just sat in the
shed until 1978. By this time my dad had been married for some time
and had moved about 20 miles away. It was about this time my
grandfather sold the old tractor to my dad’s neighbor who let
it sit outside rusting until he sold the place about 1986. The
tractor was still sitting in the same place until one day in 1989
when my dad was talking to the new neighbor and asked him what he
was going to do with the old tractor that he got with his place.
‘I’m going to haul it to the dump, it’s no good any
more. I tried to get it running, but it won’t run.’ He had
already gotten rid of the mower deck and snow blade. My dad then
asked if he could have it and he said, ‘Yes.’ After getting
it home and working on it for about an hour, my dad had it running
and later he gave it to me. It was rusty but running.
This year, 1993, my dad took it all apart and gave it a shiny
new red and white paint job and even put my initials on it. Now it
looks new again, 30 years later, and maybe someday I’ll pass it
on to one of my children. For now I’m enjoying it myself and
showed it at the 1993 Country Living Fair at Batsto, New Jersey
along with my father’s 1928 Farmall Regular.
