For most of the 20th Century, driving a tractor was a rite of passage for every child growing up on American farms.
In fact, anyone who grew up on a farm probably possesses fond memories of their first tractor ride and the first time they actually drove that beautiful machine. The long hours spent in the metal tractor seat, come rain, snow, or the glaring sun, were formative in a farmer’s life.
My memories of farm life in Owens Cross Roads, Alabama include my grandfather John Ferrell Tabor’s Allis Chalmers farm tractor. Although he was my grandfather, I always called him “Pop” and remember riding on that tractor with him every summer. We would plow corn and Pop would tell me stories of his father — my great granddad — John Henry Tabor, the first owner of what became known as the Tabor Tractor.
While I never met John Henry, I learned just about everything you could possibly learn about another human being. Most important to Pop, was the fact that John Henry Tabor was a man who lived a life filled with integrity, honor and love. And he loved his tractor.
In 1985, my family and I moved to North Carolina, and I said farewell to farm life, my grandparents and to that Allis Chalmers Model CA tractor. But even today when I close my eyes, I can still see myself looking straight down to make sure the plow was turning the corn – the most exciting times was when Pop allowed me to drive the tractor!
Sadly, my grandfather sold the tractor after we moved and then passed away in the late 1990s. A part of the Tabor legacy seemed lost without that tractor.
But as often happens in life, either God or fate intervened in my childhood memories with the Tabor family tractor. In 2006, while visiting my grandmother Opal, fondly known as “Grandma”, I asked her about that “old” tractor. I was elated to hear that she knew exactly where it was.
By the end of that day, that Allis Chalmers was sitting back on Pop’s farm and two days later I loaded it up on a trailer and brought it home in North Carolina. Grandma died the following year.
As if to recreate my life on Pop and Grandms’s farm, I had the tractor restored to that beautiful machine I recalled as a young boy.
And if I’m sitting on that metal tractor seat on a quiet Summer day, I can almost hear “Pop” telling me tales of John Henry Tabor and to keep my plow straight.
Nathan Tabor
Nathan@NathanTabor.com