Sam Moore

The other afternoon, I was working in my shop, tinkering with a John Blue tractor.

The battery was low so I’d hooked up the battery charger and got it started. As I reached in to unclip one of the charger cables from the battery terminal, the whirling fan blades caught the ring and middle fingers of my right hand. Blood flew everywhere and my poor fingers were pretty well mangled, necessitating a trip to the hospital emergency room.

After a nurse cleaned up the wounds, gave me a tetanus shot and determined that nothing was broken, a doctor sat down to sew up the lacerations. He, of course, wanted to know how the injury had happened, which, when I told him, opened a discussion of old tractors.

The doctor confessed that he’d wanted an old tractor for a long time. Oh, he lived in a nice suburb on a regular-sized lot and had absolutely no use for a tractor — but that didn’t matter — he wanted one!

Sometime earlier, the good doctor had seen, in a local trader-type newspaper, a Caterpillar D2 with a bulldozer blade advertised for sale. He admitted that a crawler tractor probably wasn’t the best choice to maintain a city lot, but he liked it. When he mentioned to his wife that he was thinking of buying the D2, she, of course, thought he’d become unhinged — “What in the world are you going to do with something like that?” “Are you crazy?” “What will the neighbors think?” — was the gist of her reaction to the news. It didn’t help when Doc told her he’d just park the little Cat in the yard and look at it; and besides, just think of how handy it’d be in the winter for plowing snow from the drive.

Anyway, someone else beat him to the Cat, which undoubtedly saved his marriage, but I predict he’ll own a tractor someday.

During the course of the conversation, the doctor mentioned that if his wife wanted to buy an expensive painting to “hang on the wall and just look at” that was no problem, but if he wanted an old tractor “just to look at” there was war in camp.

The next day, while I was sitting, nursing my sore hand and castigating myself for doing something so stupid, I began thinking of what Doc had said.

It’s funny about the dynamics between husbands and wives when it comes to collecting. A husband who has thousands of dollars worth of antique tools in the garage, complains because his wife buys a couple more Norman Rockwell plates. I have a friend who, when he buys another tractor (which isn’t often), feels compelled to sneak it home when his wife isn’t there and hide it in a shed for several months. Then, when the missus finally discovers it, he’ll say off-handedly: “Aw, that old thing. I’ve had it forever.” He says she may grumble because he has too many tractors, but it’s nothing compared to her wrath when she knows he just bought something.

Others reluctantly tolerate their mate’s overwhelming need to own “just one more” of whatever gewgaw or artifact he or she collects, while some (not many it seems, based upon my conversations with fellow collectors) are enthusiastic supporters of the other’s hobby. Luckily, I fall into the latter category; Nancy has always been fully behind my hobby, and has helped and encouraged me every step of the way. Even when that hobby results in her having to take me to the emergency room.

Thanks, Babe!

Shortly after the first hay presses came to the farm, farmers began to look for easier ways to handle bales rather than hoisting them by their wires. 

	Figure 1.
	Figure 2. Click the images for larger versions.

They turned to their local blacksmiths for help. Soon the bale hook (or hay hook) became a popular item.

There were as many different styles and shapes as there were blacksmiths and farmers. Many farmers wanted a hook just a little different from his neighbor’s so they could tell their hooks apart. Blacksmiths were more than willing to help. Besides, it was difficult for a blacksmith to make any two hooks exactly alike.

Enterprising businessmen soon got into the act. They could make standard hooks of the same size and shape and mass-produce them for the commercial market. There were D-shaped models with wood handles, T-shaped models with wood handles, T-shaped with steel handles. Some had long shanks, some with short shanks. All served the general purpose of providing farmers with a device to more easily handle bales of hay or straw.

There evolved some really unusual hooks. One of the most unusual I’ve come across is the Flippo Hook (Figure 1). It originated in Nebraska. It has a solid metal handle with a thumb-operated trigger release for the hook.

When the farmer had lifted the bale and was about to release it, all he had to do was push the thumb button and the hook released. The bale was free. To reset the hook, he pressed the thumb button again. A spring steel spring pushed down on the hook and locked it into place readying it for the next bale lift (Figure 2).

Figure 3.

Most farmers of the time also heated with wood. It was quite a chore to stack cordwood, a process that resulted in many pinched fingers.

A company in Connecticut solved that problem. They developed a special hook to stack cordwood. It had a T-shaped wood handle. The shank extended a short way — about 2 inches — then made a distinct right angle before the hook started. That allowed the woodsman to hook one end of a piece of wood to lift the log to stack wood (Figure 3).

When the log was nearly in place, he had only to press down on the T-handle to release the hook from the end of the log. He could push the log into place with his other hand, fitting the piece neatly in place — and no pinched fingers.