Sometimes my desk gets piled high and, more often than should,
letters have a habit of slipping down into the ‘stack’ and
getting lost. By the time I get around to answering the mails no
letter, no return-address to write to. Then the folks at the other
end of the line think Joe’s got the swell-head and is too
stuck-up to write.
I’m thinking of those good people in England – I’m still
hunting for their letter – who wrote last summer, asking about the
true, original colors of the old Case Tractors. I laid their letter
aside to attend the big Tri-State Gas Engine & Tractor Show in
Portland, Indiana. Some of the ‘Case Experts’ there told me
that Russ Flora’s big 20-40 Case of 1917 vintage had the
original colors. Knowing that the Englishman’s terminology for
color shades and names no doubt varies from that of ‘us
Yankees’, I though the only way to be accurate would be to take
a color photo of the Flora Case. Which I did, but, as mentioned
above, couldn’t find the letter and address from England in
order to send it. So, if our good English brethren still want a
reply to that one, if they would please write again, I might still
be able to furnish an answer.
Also from Herbert Reese, author of SEVENTY YEARS DOWN THE ROAD,
we heard several times, concerning his most interesting book.
We’ve been reading it, now and then. I often wound up reading
portions to my wife, so graphic were some of the paragraphs and
stories which she got a bang out of, too. For those who like
reading about the Good Old Days when traveling in old vintage Over
lands, Model-T’s and the like, over our hazardous
early-American mud pikes Herb Reese’s book is a must. Herb
tells it like it was in a hard-working, get-the-job-done way, as
only an enterprising Yankee can do. The many rough engineering jobs
Herb tackled, his up-country hunting experiences, sleeping outdoors
beside the broken-down jallopy along a lonely country road,
cobbling a burned-out rod that enabled his party to limp on to the
next village garage – all these make interesting experiences in a
day long before the AAA, the paved super-highway, and the Highway
Patrol.
Just one episode alone, where Herb shot a deer and stuffed the
‘dead’ critter into his car trunk to fetch home, only to
have it jump out very much alive at him after he arrived and
unlatched said trunk – is enough to send the shivvers up and down
the human spine. If you like good, rough-and-ready reading about
the days when iron men drove wooden-wheeled jitneys to do big jobs
of road grading and early-day paving the Herb Reese book will
furnish some mighty good entertainment.
We have been hearing from J. Scott Campbell, Director of the
Elwood Historical Club, Inc., held each summer at Elwood, Indiana.
Mr. Campbell has been urging all good steam engine lovers who
endear the steam traction and threshing engine, to write to their
congressmen, asking that our government issues a special
commemorative stamp in honor of that great iron horse. O, better
still, if thousands of our readers would write to the Office of the
Postmaster General, Washington, D.C. 20260 as suggested to Mr.
Campbell by our Secretary of Agriculture it might help get the job
done. Wouldn’t it be a thrill to lick a postage stamp that had
a picture of a beautiful Case Engine, or some such American engine
on it! But, if you’re like me, you’d probably buy all that
the local post office would sell you, just to keep stashed away as
a collector’s item. Many times, when I go to the post office
for stamps, they tear off some beautiful commemorative stamp which
I prefer to keep and this could be another reason why I don’t
get all my correspondence answered on time, if at all.
We did hear, only yesterday, from friend Milo Blauvelt of Bremo
Bluff, Virginia. Milo wanted to tell me how he liked reading about
the ‘Joe Dear’ in the GEM. (Pardon me for mentioning a gas
engine magazine in a steam magazine column. But I couldn’t get
around this one.) Milo writes, ‘Dear Joe: I’ve heard you
mention several times in the pages about the ‘Joe Dear’,
but now I was able to see it in your article. I built me a small
tractor, several years ago, using a 9 – 12 horsepower Wisconsin
Engine. It has plenty of power.’
How I envy Milo’s horsepower! And me with only my 1
horsepower Delco to locomote my prime mover, the ‘Joe
Dear’. We are living in the age of spray cans spray your hair
to change its color, spray for bugs, spray your spark plugs against
moisture, spray-paint your car to a brighter finish, we do every
but pray with spray.
For a long time now I’ve been hoping some genius would
invent a can of spray that would increase the horsepower of a gas
engine. If so, I’d buy the first can and begin spraying the old
Delco on the ‘Joe Dear’. I’d probably buy half-a-dozen
cans and keep right on spraying till the Delco increased from 1
horsepower to say about 12 horses then I’d be up in Milo
Blauvelt’s class, I would. Maybe I can coax that Delco Engine
genius, Junior Sarver of Arcanum, Ohio, to develop just such a can
of spray. But until that is done, I will limp along with the 1
horses that motivate the ‘Joe Dear’. And if such a spray
can isn’t invented, I’ll go right on limping along with the
one horse and the other one cut half in the middle.
Milo Blauvelt goes on to write that he’s bothered with
dizziness which makes walking difficult. He says he engineered a
small, light three-wheeled conveyance, powered by a little gas
engine, which enables him to get about quite handily in his
condition. But, he asks, ‘ Do you think they would permit me to
drive my little three-wheeled conveyance around over a threshing
reunion ground to see the engines?’ Of course, Milo, they would
be most happy to have you come in your tri-wheeled jitney. They
might even envy you, and next year you might see more folks with
tired legs riding similar mechanical gad-abouts to see the engines
in comfort. When I first began attending steam engine reunions, I
always took along my dear friend, Homer Halladay. Homer had been
crippled by polio when a lad, and I pushed him around over the
grounds in his wheel chair. Everyone was so kind and respectful,
and Homer made friends of all the steam engineers and onlookers.
So, Milo, don’t stay home. Fetch along your tri-wheeler and who
knows you might take first prize for some kind of new, innovative
light-weight ”foreign”
AUTOLOCOMOGOBUGGY.
But better still, why not try taking Lecithin each day.
You’ll like its flavor, and it works miracles in many ways to
clear cholesteral from the blood vessels and can correct some forms
of dizziness thereby. Also you could begin taking Wheat Germ
capsules for the strengthening of the heart – all of which Billy
Byrd, our Iron Man in this issue, began taking and came out perfect
in his latest engineer’s physical. The ‘Doc’ told him
he was the healthiest fellow he’d seen for a man of his age.
How’s that!
Last Sunday we attended Easter Sunrise Services, along the
beautiful Great Miami River at Troy, Ohio. The view of the peaceful
Miami was most inspiring at that early hour, as were the Miami
County historic courthouse, and the old steam power plant with its
stack belching black smoke in contrast to the many gathered to sing
praises to the Risen Lord. We were happy to see so many of various
denominations there, and such a generous sprinkling of young people
among the crowds. Everyone came, just as they were in slacks,
dresses, some with overcoats up around their necks, others in shirt
sleeves. I was one of only two there who kept my hat on, not out of
disrespect for the Lord, but rather to honor Him by not sneezing at
that early, frosty hour when so many were mingling their praises
with the mist from the Great Miami close by. As we cast our eyes
out over the peaceful, but high Miami River, we couldn’t help
being thankful that it was not raging as were some of our great
American rivers elsewhere throughout our land. And our hearts went
out to many in those less fortunate places who couldn’t worship
the Risen Savior as were we, but were probably having to leave
their shattered homes because of the rampaging waters.
Later, at the morning church service, our pastor read the
Scripture Lesson from the little red paperbound volume carrying the
Books of Luke and Acts which the Key 73 Crusade is passing out in
its efforts to reach every home for Christ this season. I have been
reading from the little red book, and find that it gives the Gospel
Message in graphic, modern style which anyone who never read a page
of the Bible before could readily understand and become interested
in. Ask your church, or some member of your local Key 73 Crusade
group for one of the volumes. They would be glad to give a copy to
youj, as it’s their purpose to furnish one for every home, free
of charge. The little volume is published for the Key 73 Crusade by
The American Bible Society. Although I still prefer some of the
older Bible translations, the modern day style can get to some who
otherwise wouldn’t try to read The King James Version or any of
the other older translations.
The Bible says, ‘In that day the Lord will pour out His
spirit upon all flesh.’ It looks like this prophecy is coming
true in our day. Many young folks who otherwise would be using
drugs or racing down the highways in hot-rods, are passing out
Bibles free and are attending church, Sunday School and prayer
groups. From many denominations they come, to mingle as one
Christian Group. Even on college campuses, the change is being
noticed. Where only a few years ago, rioting and destruction was
disrupting our college and university campuses, students are
‘now attending classes with serious motives at heart. They have
had their eyes opened. They have outgrown the rioting stage and
discovered if they are to acquire their goals, they must work for
them and not destroy property owned by the public.
Although I live in Stratford, I cannot find anyone who knows
anything about these engines. Perhaps some of the readers could
comment on the valve gear.
Everywhere, one can see an improvement in our youth a
transformation almost like a miracle from what students were doing
just a few years ago. This is an encouraging thought, especially in
this day of such dreary news ‘from the rest of the world. And
this alone can show us what our nation could really be if everyone
believed in the miracle of the Resurrection Morn. In the Book of
Acts, it tells how Peter and Paul and just a few believers actually
turned country after country upside down as people became converted
from their heathen wasy. How tragic it is to read about factional
religious wars seeting in far corners of the world, when we know
that God has done in hearts of our youth here in America. Jesus
said, ‘Don’t look here or there for the Kingdom of God. For
the Kingdom of God is within you.’ God’s spiritual laws are
as inviolate as are the laws of physics. If a man tried to build a
steam engine without knowledge of the laws of thermo dynamics, the
boiler would probably sputter and blow up without doing a lick of
work. But an engineer, using his knowledge of the laws of heat
generation and combustion builds his engine and his efforts are
rewarded with a machine that blesses mankind in labor returned.
Jesus said, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall
set you free.’ And what a difference it all makes – following
God’s law and worshipping together on Easter Mroning, or
ignoring that law and fighting each other in the false name of
so-called religion.
One of the leading Bible expositors of all time, the late Dr.
Donald Gray Barnhouse, once said, ‘God is the foremost junk
dealer of all time. He takes in all the discarded human wrecks and
restores them, like new again.’
From a junk-heap, man rebuilds an engine from human bondage, God
restores a soul.
