This Old Tractor: A Treasury of Vintage Tractors and Family Farm Memories

by Michael Dregni (Editor)

This book pays homage to farm life, farm families, and to the classic farm tractor.  Part family farm nostalgia, part reminiscences about faithful old tractors, this book is chock full of endearing pieces written by all the well known tractor book authors and historians including Randy Leffingwell, Ralph W. Sanders, Robert Pripps, C.H. Wendel, Bill Vossler, Don Macmillan, and CBS Sunday Morning's Roger Welsch. The text is enhanced by a variety of artwork, paintings, historical photos and full color photos.  Colorful old ads, tractor catalogs and magazine covers, and tractor toys are sure to bring back warm memories of cherished days spent on the family farm.  Tractor buffs, anyone interested in farming or collectibles, and anyone who grew up on a farm will cherish this collection of stories and artwork devoted to the classic farm tractor.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bought it as a gift for my dad, read it before I gave it to him, and found myself surprisingly engaged. I grew up in the city/suburbs, and all my knowledge of farm life comes secondhand through family stories. (Man, we've got some good ones, though!) My dad grew up on a farm, though, and a while back he took to buying antique tractors like the ones he drove and worked with when he was young. Before I went off to college, I got dragged along to tractor pulls and shows multiple times per year, and I never found them particularly exciting. I've managed to dodge those trips for several years now and haven't really missed them. But reading through this book, I found myself recognizing a lot of the photographs (whoa! A Rumely Oil Pull! A Funk conversion!) and being able to picture a surprising number of details in the anecdotes and essays from stories that my dad and his family and friends have told. Family legacy is a pretty weighty concept, and not something I think about very often, but this book surprised me by putting me back in touch with a piece of mine that I hadn't expected to feel that close to.