Nothing’s like riding shotgun in a combine or on a tractor. Not to mention that I was with my father, who will always be my hero.
We would often take this shared love of John Deere tractors (much better than Massey Ferguson, according to him) to the Clark County Fair for the tractor pulls. Mom would suffer through some of it, but she and my sister would usually retreat to the midway until we were done.
Back in May, Dad turned 75. He’s not much into parties and would say he didn’t need anything. Calling upon our fondness for Big Green Tractors, I offered to take my parents to the Tractor Pull Nationals in Bowling Green.
The only requirement was that we be close to shopping for Mom so she had something to do while Dad and I were at the fairgrounds. Then we unexpectedly lost Mom in June.
A devastating, life-changing experience I can’t talk about yet. I figured Dad wouldn’t want to go, but I was wrong.
As a matter of fact, that’s where I am as we speak. The National Tractor Pulling Championships. If you’re not familiar with a tractor pull, they’re about as far from a Kenny Chesney “sexy” tractor as you can get.
Tractor pulling has become an international, multimillion dollar, motorsport sanctioned event. These turbo charged machines are built with engines made from just about anything: discarded military machinery, Russian helicopters, even torpedo boat engines.
The tractors are divided into different classes, with the goal of pulling the most weight in a sledge. If all the tractors successfully go the entire length of the track, known as a “full pull” more weight is added until there is a winner.
There may be a world of difference between an 8-year-old girl chugging along on a tractor in a Clark County cornfield and a 40- something-year-old woman watching souped-up mega machines at a national championship event, but one thing remains the same. I’m still sitting next to my Dad.
Readers can contact Nancy Wilson, a morning-radio personality at WHKO-FM (K99.1), by email through k99online.com.
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