By Lee Pitts

Machinery and I don’t get along. If it has a steering wheel and a clutch I can wreck it. I consider the Industrial Revolution a major setback in man’s evolution. In my life I have managed to drive a forklift over a 10-foot embankment and a truck and trailer over a 100-foot one. (I’m lucky to have survived that one!) I have only owned one piece of farm ma-chinery in my life: a forerunner to the tractor called a Fordson. And I use the term "tractor" in a very loose sense. It ran like a two legged dog and sounded as if it smoked four packs per day. I became a rancher instead of a farmer because of the absence of gears. The only thing I want to "steer" is a bull calf, not a Versatile or a Steiger. I prefer the smell of recycled grass to grease. A lawn mower is the extent of my expertise with things that have carburetors.

So, you can imagine my discomfort when I was asked to help sell out a rancher who also happened to be a farmer. To put together the sale brochure required I learn an entirely new language. You don’t know how hard this was for a guy who had never read an operator’s manual in his life and didn’t know the difference between a "plow packer" and a "Pinzgauer". I always thought a "round bale mover" was a fat hired hand and a Farmhand was someone whose Social Security you had to match. A 1,000 gallon nurse tank sounds like a lactating Holstein to me. I don’t even want to picture in my mind a "top-dresser". It sounds almost indecent.

I soon discovered that the farmer’s vocabulary is composed entirely of letters and numbers. Merely mention the phrase "JD 2510 with 3 pt. pto, hyd, a/c" and it’s enough to make a farmer drool all over himself. They speak of favorite old tractors in solemn tones and argue endlessly about the best tractors ever made. One guy will make a "Case" for "Cat" while another will get all misty-eyed over an Allis-Chalmers.

When we sold out my farmer friend he wanted to make sure his tractors would go to a good home and told us not to take bids from anyone buying his used machinery for parts. He stored his equipment in a heated shop but his dog had to sleep outside.

On sale day we lined up all his tractors in a long row and walked down it with a bullhorn selling the metal monsters one at a time. When we reached a huge green tractor that was bigger than my first house, one of the perspective buyers yelled at me to start it up. Heck, I didn’t even know how to get on the thing.

It immediately became apparent that I was in way over my bald head. I called everything a "gizmo" or a "watchamacallit" and tried to impress everyone with general comments such as: "Isn’t she a beauty?" Or, "She’s a real collector’s item. It’s so old it’s paid for." I talked about the thick rubber on the tires a lot.

The prices those old boys paid for their big toys astounded me. We sold a MF8300, whatever that is, for $80,000! At those prices I could really grow to like farm auctions but I’m afraid I haven’t got a chance. One farmer summed it up succinctly when he said, "You sure don’t know much about machinery do you?"

"If I did do you really think I’d be selling barren cows for a living?" I replied.

Despite my incompetence, the heavy metal brought a fortune and my farmer friend actually seemed pleased. After he stopped sobbing and bid a tearful farewell to his equipment we began auctioning his livestock.

We had a large crowd gathered up but the cattle did not sell well at first, I think because the crowd consisted almost entirely of farmers, not ranchers. But when an open heifer entered the sale ring I was struck with a stroke of genius. "My farmer friends," I begged, "don’t think of her as a cow but as a quick-coupling, stalk chopping, no-till seeding, self-propelled, four-cycle, swing-tongued, easy loading, round bale busting, one-headed chopper with only 17,000 hours on her."