Amusing Experiences With Crawler Tractors
March/April 1972
Don E. Reed
 |
Courtesy of Wilbur A. Skaar, 1429 Benton St., Alameda, California 94501.
Wilbur A. Skaar
|
R. R. 1, Muscatine. Iowa 52761.
In G.E.M. Sept.-Oct. issue, Mr. Norbert J. Lucht wrote an
article on Crawler tractors and wanted to hear of other experiences
people have had. Here are a few that will bring a chuckle to him
and many other readers, I am sure.
I was 'cat skinner' for Eliza Town ship road
commissioner, Milo Linder, in Mercer County, Illinois, several
years ago. Milo and I changed off greasing the equipment every
other morning, and this was my time to do the job. We had an H.D 7
A.C. Cat, and the inside track fittings were underneath the
tractor. We would grease everything else, then the one doing the
greasing would lie down in front of the tractor and signal the
other one to drive astraddle of him to reach those inside fittings,
as this was easier and cleaner than crawling under the Cat. This
particular morning an elderly man had showed up to check with Milo
about some work he wanted us to do. When Milo started the tractor
moving toward me lying on the ground, the man thought I was going
to be run over, and he screamed and moaned until the Cat was
stopped and the situation explained to him.
One time we were cleaning ditches along the levee in Bay Island,
and small trees and brush had sprung up in the ditch. We were going
along fine and I was sitting crosswise in the seat to better catch
Milo's signals, now and then moving a steering clutch to keep
the Cat in road. About this time we hit a large root and the Cat
swung crossways in the road before we could stop. What made this so
funny was that the New Boston, Ill. mail man was driving slow
beside me when the Cat turned, and he took off like a dragster.
We were going to gravel this same road where we cleaned ditches,
and had bladed it up nice, when we got a fall rain. The road got
cut up some, and froze up with lots of knobs on the surface. We
wanted to remove these knobs before rocking the road and the County
Superintendent told us to use the Cat and grader. He said, 'You
will think that old grader will fly apart the way it will pop and
groan, but it won't.' We went down the next morning to get
rid of the knobs, and we were both skeptical of the outcome. The
cab had not been put on the tractor for Winter yet when we hooked
up to the grader. We thought it would fly to pieces any minute and
go in the Mississippi River. However, it was not the grader that
worried me, it was those frozen mud balls, from the size of
marbles, to larger than baseballs, whizzing past my head. The only
chance I had was to lie down in the seat, and lie down I did.
One time we were blading a drive for a farmer, and he kept hives
of bees under some shade trees by the' drive. I was watching
Milo for signals, when he signaled to stop, which I did. He piled
off the grader and into the brush, he went, yelling, 'What in
H--- did you stop for? The bees are after me.' I said, 'You
gave me the stop sign.' and he yelled back, 'I sure
didn't aim to.' It is a funny thing, diesel fuel burning,
drives bees wild, but they never bothered me on the Cat, just the
man on the grader.