Source: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.woodworking/XlEdF6FsYB4/KghqqQ3hivQJ From: scou...@cybernetics.net (Thomas Gauldin) Subject: Re: Lawn Tractor Recommendations- Date: 1995/05/26 Message-ID: <3q4t14$su7@news0.cybernetics.net> X-Deja-AN: 103329176 references: organization: Creative Cybernetics, Inc. newsgroups: rec.woodworking The fellow who asked for lawn tractor recommendations got some pretty good advice from us woodworkers. Apparently, we also take time off from playing in the shop to play in the grass. I know that the following post is off topic, but since it's the weekend, a holiday and I'm waitng for some stuff to dry out a tad, let me tell you a very true story. It came to mind when the one respondent commented about the weight of the trailer that various tractors could pull. The name has been changed to protect the dignity of my friend. Many years ago, I had to move to Yankee country to pursue my career. Within a few months of moving into our neighborhood, my wife and I met a neighbor and his wife who turned out to become two of the best friends and neighbors that any person could ask to have. "Big Jim" and I first met while mowing our lawns. Both of us were fanatics back then about beautiful grass, trees and shrubs and would spend hours every week grooming our lawns. We found an instant common interest in tractors, lawns, building, a little beer drinking, tools and woodworking. What more could any man ask for in a neighbor? Big Jim had a Cub Cadet with 16 hp engine, while I'd opted for John Deere 650 diesel with 4 wheel drive. Jim's Cub probably weighed in at 500 or so pounds, where my JD tipped the scales at over 1,500 pounds. We had the same garden trailers, though- the kind about 3' wide, 4' long and about 12" deep. It soon came to pass that whenever Big Jim or I would start a project, the other would show up, tool, tractor, shovel or beer in hand to give the other guy a hand. One day, after much thought, I started a project to build a new garage where I had a concrete ramp to my former garage. Big Jim and I spent virtually the entire day running a rented pneumatic hammer to break out the old concrete. Big Jim's property adjoined a little creek, and years before, he and I had cut a fairly steep path down the hillside, so that he could get to an adjoining parcel, where he had his garden. I'd guess that the path was 150' long and that the slope was about 20% most of the way down. Both of us had become very used to going down that path, crossing a bridge we'd built, and getting into the garden. During the afternoon, we had to decide what to do with the 600 or so square feet of concrete that we'd broken up for the new garage. Big Jim insisted that what we needed to do was to load it into our trailers and dump it on the sides of the creek at his bridge to hold down erosion. We'd both been fighting off the heat with a few Budweisers, so neither of us saw any problems with the idea. We then proceeded to load the trailers as full as we could with the broken concrete. Since the tires had squished flat to almost the rims, I suspect some might say the trailers were a tad overloaded. I'd guess that the trailers probably had over 1,000# each in them, and if someone told me it was 1,500#, I wouldn't argue. Before we left to go up the street to Big Jim's place, I went in the house and got each of us another beer to make the 700' drive up to Big Jim's a bit easier. We then proceeded to head out my driveway and up to Big Jim's. As with most men in their 30's, half full of beer, and driving tractors, we decided to see who could get there first. Jim's Cub Cadet had the edge, since we'd long established that a blazing 8.5 mph is faster than 8.45 mph, and his blazing .05 mph advantage placed him about 10' ahead of me by the time we raced across his yard to the path leading down to the creek. I could see it happening as if in slow motion. . . I hit the clutch and brakes on my JD and watched as Big Jim "won" the race by breaking over the hill at the predetermined 8.5 mph while looking back at me and giving me the finger. The grin on his face, the wind in his hair, the sound of that Kohler 16hp engine doing 20,000 RPM. . . the scream of "Oh, SHIT!" as he started down that hill with a trailer full of concrete behind him. . . the beer can flying at least 22' in the air as it was extruded from his suddenly clenched fist. . . these are all some of those little Hallmark Card moments that stay with you for a lifetime. All of this happened before I lost my hearing, and to this day, I can still remember hearing words, phrases and descriptions that human ears were never intended to hear, coming from the mouth of Big Jim as he disappeared over that hill and out of sight. I jumped off my tractor and struck out down that hill faster than any fat boy ever moved in his life. Going down that path were two of the blackest and deepest smoking tire tracks you've ever seen, where Big Jim had thrown that hydrostatic transmission beyond neutral into reverse, as he tried to slow down. At the bottom of the hill, where our little trail met our bridge, there was Big Jim sitting calmly on his Cub Cadet trying to look cool as he tried to light a cigarette with hands that just wouldn't work right. The trailer and Cub Cadet had jacknifed at the bridge, with the trailer upside down in the creek and the Cub Cadet sitting just on the bridge, at right angles to it, with the rear wheels on the edge. I ran up shouting, "You OK, boy?" as any friend would. Big Jim just looked back at me and said, "Gauldin, go home." I thought that he was either hurt or in shock and then the smell hit me: Big Jim needed to go up to the house to change clothes, because somewhere between the top of that hill and the bridge, he'd lost control. I left him alone the rest of the day, and the following day we pulled the trailer out of the creek, welded the axle back on and banged the sides back into shape. The incident was never mentioned for years, except one time when Big Jim told me, "The trouble with trailers ain't in the goin'- it's in the stoppin'." I hope that our friend wanting a garden tractor to tow a heavy load remembers this. I have several other stories about Big Jim, but I'll save them for another -- Thomas A. Gauldin Here's to the land of the longleaf pine, Raleigh, NC The summerland where the sun doth shine, BSRB45A on Prodigy Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, FAX (919) 676-1404 Here's to Downhome, the Old North State.