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THE CHRONICLES GO FOR THE TRACTION
Brother Furthermore, my geographically challenged pet raven brother, knows next to nothing about Nebraska. Come to think of it, YOU probably know next to nothing about Nebraska. I, on the other hand, having been born and raised in the Cornhusker State, know just about everything there is to know (and some things that won’t be known for years to come) about Nebraska. I know. Thank you. It’s hard to be humble when you’re from Nebraska.
But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about. I want to talk about farm machinery. Heavy farm machinery.
Growing up in Nebraska, even if you didn’t grow up on a farm, you automatically were gifted with certain knowledge. Some was genetic, other knowledge came by osmosis. You grew up knowing about tractors and combines and the hog reports and what “knee high by the Fourth of July” meant and what sorghum was and neat stuff like that. You never know when you’re going to need to know the best binder twine for your Rotobaler, you know?
Let me digress a moment. My younger sister, Barb, lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming. You didn’t know I had a sister, did you? Thought the folks were smart enough to give up after the first son, didn’t you? A lot you know. Anyway, I don’t talk about her in this column very much because she’s a lawyer—a prosecuting attorney, at that—and you just know how they love to get even.
So, lately, Barb’s been snowed in. Really DEEP snowed in. A friend finally plowed her out. The friend had a great, big, honking John Deere tractor. That’s what I’m talking about! The real deal. Big. Mean. Green. Nothing runs like a Deere! Not one of those little sidewalk sweepers, but the real thing. You know. Twenty feet tall with wheels that blot out the sun! Yeh!
Barb needs a John Deere tractor. I’m thinking the Model 9520 T Track Tractor, 450 horsepower, 18-speed Powershift transmission, a hydraulic system that delivers 44 gpm! And that sells for a recommended base price of just slightly more than $231,000!
That’s the sort of tractor that an angry tobacco farmer recently drove to Washington, D.C., and parked in the Reflecting Pool on the Mall to make a point about reduced tobacco subsidies. Of course, his point was muted when it was reported he had received $350,000 in subsidies in the last five years or so.
Which, of course, is the only way he could afford that great big honking John Deere sitting there in the middle of the Reflecting Pool!
Anyway, the bottomline is this: Brother Furthermore and I want a John Deere. The big one. It’s macho! It’s green! It’s mean and we want one. At least one. We don’t have snow to plow here in Phoenix and we don’t much care about the tobacco subsidy, but, hey, just driving to work with our big shiny steel snow blade down in rush hour would be worth it!
See the sort of neat stuff you pick up by being a native of Nebraska? Eat your hearts out.
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