Grandpa’s toy tractor

My husband did not want to leave his toy tractor behind. He wanted to take it with us when we visited the grandchildren.

It really should be MY tractor. I found the bright green plastic tractor and wagon sitting in front of the “For Pet’s Sake” thrift store when my brother and sister visited back in June. My brother turned his rental van around almost as fast I would have and helped me load it.
My sister whispered I got it for a whole lot less than it would have cost new.

My brother said it needed a battery.

It sat in the garage for two months waiting on that charger.

My husband found a battery and charger – for significantly more than the tractor cost me – but still less than a new tractor. He plugged it in, pushed the accelerator and said there was a problem.
Many hours later  – fortunately he does not bill for toy repairs or the tractor really would have cost more than a new one – he laid out his diagnosis and the potential cost for his possible list of repair parts. I said maybe we didn’t need to fix it up.
He said he would call the manufacturer.

The company clerk said they had a complete kit for replacing the electrical harness for half the price I paid for the tractor.

Two days later the parts arrived and that was the day the tractor officially became my husband’s. His face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. He brushed aside all his other plans for the evening, set out tools and within three hours proudly showed me how perfectly it worked. That was two days before we planned to meet the family en route to a wedding in New Orleans.
He said the tractor would fit in the back of the van.
I wondered if there would be room for me.

He said it was just the two of us going in the van – there was plenty of room for the tractor and its trailer and the children were still small enough to ride it.

I wondered where the children would have time or place to play with it – we were meeting at a hotel.
He folded down one seat in the van and fitted the tractor and trailer in snugly and showed me it was going.
I had several toys I wanted to share with the grandchildren. He loaded some of them in the tractor’s trailer. The rest we packed under and on top of the other unused seats – including the aprons I made for the little girls to wear while playing with the cooking toys I planned to give the third oldest for her birthday.

At the hotel, my husband parked the tractor just inside the hotel room door. The next morning, I was up, dressed and prepared for an hour before the children came knocking at our door.

The kids rushed in with hugs, yells and enough excitement to wake my husband. His grinned and pointed them to the tractor. The oldest drove it out the door to the sidewalk in front of the rooms. The birthday girl tore into her gifts. Under childish imagination, the aprons became capes, drapes, veils and super-hero clothes.

Fortunately, the battery-operated tractor runs quietly and the children know how to play with subdued voices. They took turns driving. It went back and forth in front of our room – around the corner past the office –  around the next corner to the other side of the hotel – completely around the hotel’s sidewalk back to our room.

The grandson added the grand finale by shifting into high gear, putting the pedal to the medal as he stood up bracing himself, grinning and enjoying the breeze as he spun along at 4.5 miles per hour.

They finally parked the tractor and checked out the other toys, ate the hotel’s continental breakfast – and discovered the hotel’s swimming pool. Their dad agreed to a 30 minute swim before we all checked out. They were well into their swim, when grandpa remembered our camera. He handed it to me and insisted I take a picture of each dripping wet, swimsuit clad child riding grandpa’s newest toy – a permanent record that we really did take Grandpa’s tractor with us when we visited the grandchildren.


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