First Time Driving a Tractor

by Susan Panning
(Canby Minnesota USA)

Newly married, we had just purchased our first home. It was a beautiful building site with a very, very long gravel driveway.

My husband borrowed a pull behind road grader and hooked it up to our first John Deere tractor.

I had never been in a tractor cab, much less had the opportunity to drive a tractor since I grew up in a rural town, not on the farm.

Patiently, he set the gears, set the tractor creeping down the driveway, then ran to hop on the grader reminding me to remember to look back and watch him.

I was hypnotized at all the gears, gadgets etc. as we crept down the long driveway. I had driven this machine about two/thirds the way when all of a sudden I remembered I was supposed to look and see how "hubby" was doing. I turned quickly.

Instead of seeing the grader on the driveway where it should have been, I saw my husband hanging on for dear life while the grader was perched over the ditch. Oh the look of desperation he gave me! Worst of all I didn't know how to stop the tractor either.

We have long since left "the farm". And we will be celebrating our 45th wedding anniversary soon. We look back at laugh at those " good old days every now and then.

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Susan, thank you so much for your story on driving a tractor for the first time. Glad to read that you are still together after that incident and wishing you and your husband a very happy 45th wedding anniversary!