Dad’s Old Wheel-Horse
Many years ago back when I was three or four my family and I lived in Ohio and Dad owned one of those red, Wheel-Horse tractors. It was an average size for a riding mower I suppose and very shiny. Dad had purchased it at Sears all those years ago. That had been long before he and Mom had adopted me. We had a large backyard that included a garden and my father used that blasted mower for just about any occasion he could think of. Whether it was to till up fresh dirt for planting, or mowing our spacious yard. It was because of his wide range of tasks for the mower to do that it seemed as thought he was always taking it in to be worked on.
Well, there were times when the mower didn’t need repair at all and Dad was only taking it in for some routine maintenance. There was one time when he had to take back to the dealer for a repair after using it as a pony-towing device one night. It was about 3: 30 in the morning and my Welsh/Shetland pony, Eddie fell to colic. Dad had supposedly found him first and had gotten Mom up and it wasn’t long after all the noise and excitement that I had awakened also. It was in mid summer, so the weather warm, no need to bundle up and I vaguely remember Mom and I walking out to Dad who had already fired up his ever-faithful Wheel-Horse and handed me Eddie’s lead rope. I sat on the back of the mower while Daddy went slowly around the yard and the two of us kept Eddie on his feet. We stopped after about 45 minutes or so and Eddie was put back in his stall.
The next day I believe that Dad was going to take the mower out to do the lawn and it wouldn’t budge for him. Well, it was official, the lawnmower was in need of repair, so Dad shoved it into the bed of his old Ford and hauled it off to Sears. There’s not a whole lot to tell after that, however because it was found out that the poor tractor had seen its last good deed done after pulling my pony and it had to be replaced. We were pressed for the funds to purchase a new mower for a while, so Dad did what he could with an old push mower he had and then our neighbor, Bob Cline would come and cut the rest with his riding mower.
I’m staying with an elderly woman now who had her nephew cut the grass for her one summer in exchange for a car she was trying to sell. The equipment that he uses looks pretty worn and sad really and he didn’t mow that many times for her that year where there hadn’t been at least one slip-up or mishap with his equipment. My family and I had moved to Tennessee before I turned 13. Mom had divorced and remarried and the two of them had decided to move back to his native state after not being able to stand Florida any longer. Okay, well now I’m with this older woman and as I said he did mow, (almost) for her for an entire summer. Well, her yard has got to be one of trickiest yards to mow that I ever did see.
The woman lives in a mobile home and each time her nephew would mow for her he couldn’t do so without hitting it, either with a stone that the blade had picked up, or with the mower itself. She owns a small lot beside the home as well and he tried cutting the grass with a riding mower once and tipped himself over. Luckily he didn’t hurt himself though. this woman’s nephew does all of his own lawnmower repairs, from tinkering with the engine to adding the oil and changing the spark plugs on the riding mower. When I had moved out of our house and my younger brother still lived with our folks he use to do all of the yard work for our parents. He still does it now sometimes even though he’s moved into a house and a yard of his own. I don’t remember us having much lawnmower repair work to do during this time. Usually if they have a problem with something now they just replace the old with the new.
I remember when I was younger I use to watch both of my fathers when they mowed, which by longstanding tradition was always done on Saturday. Anyway, I remember how excited I would get whenever my first adoptive father would let me ride on that old Wheel horse. When he had it he was forever getting stuff like promotions and advertisements for accessories for the mower. He would get these little stickers too. they were the ones with a horse’s head rolling over the wheel. He would give those to me whenever he got them. I’d say that’s about the extent of my ‘lawn mower repair” stories. Those were some good times and it’s to believe they’re all gone now.