This is not Dad nor I on our old '44 Model "A" JD but it could have been. Our Kitone group sang at the Greene House assisted living facility this evening. I had an opportunity to visit with my classmate Jack Armstrong who is a resident there and told him of a discussion we had at coffee this morning. An auction is coming up in Seward this Saturday that includes some Ertel type model tractors. I was asked about my collection of models that led to the story of Dad getting our JD through the County Rationing Board back during WWII. I told of having the model of the "real thing" brought back a lot of memories, not all of them good. I told of Don having the misfortune of getting the grease gun into the fan and damaging the radiator. We took the radiator up to Cliff Armstrong (Jack's Dad) and he was able to do a very delicate job of welding to get it repaired. Under normal circumstances it would have been replaced but this was wartime and nothing was available. Cliff did such an excellent job that the radiator never was replaced during the 20+ years Dad had the tractor. I told Jack that story this evening along with how appreciative we were (and still are) for his willingness to tackle a difficult problem and the skill to fix it. Jack was pleased to hear the story and said, "I suppose he charged you $3.00" which was probably about what he did for at least 3 hours of work. Were those the "Good old Days" or what?
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