370 Greenfield Circle, Santa Rosa, California 95405
Going through the Iron Man Album, I came upon notice of George
Hedtke’s steam show for August 7-10. I said to the Mrs.,
‘Get your bag packed. We are going to the steam show. At the
same time we can see our granddaughter and great-grandson who live
in Rockford, Illinois.’ I rushed down to the travel agency for
We boarded one of those American Airlines DC-10’syou know
the ones that have the 10′ cracks. Well, I took along a few
bandaids in case the cracks became any larger. We were bound for
O’Hare Airport in Chicago. That DC-10 is a great airplane!
We were met by our granddaughter and her husband and our
great-grandson, Benjamin, 2 years old. In two hours we were in
Rock-fordonly 13 miles from Hickory Oaks.
August 7th I was at the beautiful parkhuge trees and rolling
grounds. I was like a kid (of course, I didn’t run as fast!)
trying to take it all in at once. I said to myself, ‘I’m
going to see what George Hedtke and Harry Woodmanse look like.’
I had seen pictures of them and had no trouble finding them. I
found them to be really nice fellows.
George has a fine lot of old farm machinery, Case tractors and
steam engines. The nice part is that they all run.
The big Case 110, the grand old lady nothing seems to bother her
no matter how much you tie on behind. But I think George should
ease up a little on her say ten plows. Those old gears can get
metal fatigue kind of like my old bones.
The Case road roller was a pretty sight. The Avery 80 looked
like new. The same for the big Aultman Taylor 30-60. All those
beautiful horses were a sight to behold.
There were a couple of models there. The little Reeves and the
saw mill were beautiful pieces of work. So was the little vertical
engine with the little upright baler. Well, everything was just
great!
I came back Saturday and went through the whole thing again. The
food was good, the ladies at the gate were real nicealso the ladies
that sold the baskets. I bought two or three to take back to the
little women for a peace offering.
I gave the register a quick glance and found a party from Davis,
California about 80 miles from Santa Rosa, California, also a party
from Japan. I had a great time! George Barring came on crutches,
‘See you next year!’
I came from the last year of the last century. I have been
through the walking plow stage, gang plow and the one-row
cultivator to pulling milkweeds out of oat fields on up through the
Waterloo Boy and the Case 15-27 on through the Reeves 20 HP. Simple
into six-bottom plows and threshing machines. It is still lots of
fun to see the old farm machinery in action again.
