Interesting that you're an old farm kid, Mike. I grew up in Smithfield working on the neighbor's farms. You just learned to fix things good enough to get the job done. Usually you had pretty limited tools with what was in the piece of equipment you were working with. Then there was always the time factor. Is it quicker to fix in the field or run it back to the shop (where you had to sift through the insane shop with parts, tools and such scattered everywhere)?
Being a "hand", I was relegated to fixing elevators, conveyors and such. Rarely fixing/operating something cool like a tractor, combine or similar. For whatever reason, I couldn't seem to get out of the milk barn as a kid and if I did it was to throw bales in the field or dig ditches or whatever. Gave me a strong back and shoulders for sure. Sloppy tails and cows to snuggle with. Great stuff. I still love heavy equipment and farm equipment. It's fun to rent something like a mini-excavator or the like and be able to operate it decently within a few minutes due to the exposure on the farm and the understanding of hydraulic cylinders and such that gave.
Marc, yes, fellow farm hand here.
I was born and raised on my parent's dairy farm in West Haven, Utah, before it was actually West Haven. You are spot on with the mindset of fixing things "good enough to get the job done". My dad was a freakin' genius when it came to all things mechanical, well many other things as well, but especially mechanical things. He had one of those minds that could look at something and figure out how it worked and then actually duplicate it, although maybe not to the degree of detail but it worked. My dad simply looks at the tractors and equipment as tools to get the job done, nothing more. While my dad had a limited formal education, to me he was a genius and my hero. He was not a vocal man by any means and seldom spoke, or spoke little. However, he said more by his actions than most people who give lectures. When he needed to learn how to weld to keep equipment running on the farm, he merely took some night classes at the local college and as soon as he learned enough, he put that to work keeping the machinery working.
My dad moved to Utah when he was a young boy with his parents when they moved to Ogden from Superior, WY where my grandfather was a coal miner. My grandfather had saved up enough to relocated from the coal mining area of Wyoming, and Ogden reminded him and my grandmother of their birthplace in between Italy and Austria, called Tyrol. My dad would have been about 10 or 11 years old when his father purchased the farm in Ogden.
I came along later in my parent's life, but my dad taught me the very basics of welding and working on things, but this knowledge was merely to get the equipment back out in the field working again, nothing more as you stated. I remember as I started getting older and wanted to refine my skills a bit more, he would get so frustrated with me when I would grind out a weld to make it better, or search for a missing bolt so that it matched the others. His famous line was "we're not making pianos, that's good enough". While I understood the premise of the message he was trying to tell me, the fact is, I didn't like the actual message, so we seemed to **** heads quite a bit over this oh so common topic.
That was until I was in High School, and he saw me really start to develop my love of all things mechanical. I didn't have the "gift" that my dad had where he could easily and quickly figure out how things worked as I found myself having to scratch and claw my way through the learning process, I still do most days.
But I think he saw my passion in what I was trying to accomplish or become, so he quit pushing the issue as much as our relationship grew exponentially. In fact, I think I probably had a much better relationship with my father than any of my 6 siblings. I hear some of them talk about how mean or difficult he was and it breaks my heart to hear of them talk about him this way as that is not the dad I knew. They keep saying it was because I was the youngest, so I got to see the "nice dad", but I don't think that is it at all. I saw the same strict and demanding dad they saw growing up, but it wasn't until later that I saw the real person who just wanted so much more for his kids than he had, and even more than I think they wanted for themselves. I think once I felt like I understood him, my respect and love for him also grew. Although, I'm not gonna lie, growing up there was always a fine line between the respect and fear I had for the man. He may have had a small stature, but he carried a large presence.
My senior year of High School he helped me build a small workshop on the farm as he could see my passion really ramping up. We bought used materials and kept costs down then divided it in half so he could use part as tractor storage. The smaller 25'x25' area I used as my first workshop where I continued to fuel my passion for automotive and some racing, as I continued learning everything I could in my full-time career as an Industrial Maintenance Mechanic.
While working on the farm alongside my dad gave me the basics, I feel it did more for helping to develop a strong work ethic and having my father as an example could not have been a better childhood for my developmental years, at least I feel that way now looking back. We didn't have much in terms of monetary or financial, but my father taught me more valuable lessons by actions more so than words, that anything is possible through hard work and he was the perfect example of that.
As soon as my siblings were married or old enough to move out, they left the farm and never looked back. Me, I probably wanted off the farm more than them all combined, however, once I married and moved out, I saw that he still needed me to help on the farm as I was the youngest of 7 and last to leave home. All I wanted to do was spin wrenches and continue to learn all things mechanical, but I couldn't walk away and turn my back on the man who gave so much of himself so I could grow as a man. I continued to work the farm with my BIL for about another 5-6 years while working my full-time job as well as trying to wrench on cars on the side.
One day when I was in my mid-20's, I had to have a heart to heart with my dad and explain how I didn't want to farm any longer and just wanted to progress in my career and follow my passion of automotive and do some racing. He was so understanding and simply told me he would just lease the farm out and what turned out to be a feared conversation for several years actually turned out to be a great opportunity for both of us to grow closer. I idolized my dad in so many ways and I don't think there's a day that goes by where I don't miss him, and I owe it all to that damn farm that I grew up on yet couldn't wait to get off of.
I think back often and wonder if the mess I had to work in on the farm is what formed me into the **** person I am now or if it was something else. There is no way I could go back to working under the same conditions as I did in my early years, but I don't think I'd trade those memories for anything.
