Yall come on in and have a seat. Junie Jones asked me to talk to yall about Red Tractor Tank. Now some of yall from up North might not know it but every Texas Farm or Ranch has a tank on it. I don't mean one of those big armored trucks with a canon, down here in Texas a tank is a man made pond. What we do is dig a big hole in the ground and fill it with water. Now if your lucky you can build your tank beside a spring or a creek so that you don't have to pipe in water. There are three major reasons for having a tank 1) watering your livestock 2) you throw some fish in here and in a couple of years you got a good fishing hole and 3) they are great for swimming.

Most of the time we don't name our tanks. There has got to be something real special about it to earn a name, you know sorta like dogs and small children. In the case of Red Tractor Tank it got its name from the way it was built. It was way back in 71 or 72 Enoch and Junie bought the old Thompson place. Yall remember ole Mike Thompson don't cha? Short feller dark hair had six fingers on his left hand. Anyway ole Mike never had a tank on his farm. He said they were breeding grounds for Mosquito's, snakes and Republicans. Mike was a good farmer but I think he worked out in them fields without a hat a few times too many.

What? No Mike didn't build the tank aint you listning? Where was I, oh yea Enoch and Junie bought Ole Mike's farm. Well Enoch wanted a tank so he asked Hiram and Big Bobby to come dig him one. I guess he figured that Big Bobby knew more about diggin a hole than anyone else in the county.

Enoch had picked out a spot right above one of them natural springs. So Big Bobby jumped on Enoch's Brand New Red Tractor and took to diggin.

Hiram walked over and asked "Enoch you did trace out that spring didn't you?"

Enoch said "Well Hiram, I knew I forgot to do something but I think we are diggin right on top of it."

Hiram looked at him and said "you mean right beside it don't cha? I mean if we were right on top of it Big Bobby could end up breaking thru to some underground pool or something."

Enoch got that confused look on his face and said "Youre just funnin with me aint ya?"

Hiram started running, waving his arms and yelling "Bobby STOP STOP!!"

Next thing you know that big ole tractor started sinking. Big Bobby tried to back up and the tractor started leaning to the right real bad. Bobby jumped off and started running, Enoch yelled "My New Red Tractor!!" Then the roof over that underground pool collapsed and that whole tractor sand out of sight.

Now I aint a vicous woman but I gotta admit I never laughed so hard in my life. My place was right next to Enoch's and I was leaning on the fence watching those three fools yelling at each other and running around that Pool. They tell me to this day when they have a bad drought down here you can still see the top of that tractor tru the water.

What? Oh my name is Irma Dodson, I am just in town for the weekend to visit my Daughter in Law.