I was raised in the 1950’s in rural southwest Texas… and wasn’t the only one who had driven a tractor before they entered first grade. It was a farm community, after all.

As a small child, I would sometimes ride along on the tractor as Dad or Grandpa plowed fields or baled hay or whatever. Everybody had “old school” tractors, not the glass-enclosed, air-conditioned, radio-equipped, computerized machines of today.

Allis Chalmers tractor

I would stand between their legs and steer the wheel. Once you’re in a field and on a row, you just guide it straight. If you get everything lined up right, it almost drives itself.

The throttle is a simple lever-wire arrangement that you set manually. The speed would remain constant until you reached up and changed it.

So, I learned how to operate the throttle and steer in a straight line at a very early age. Dad would press the clutch and I could shift gears. The shifting pattern was complicated but it took a LOT of leg strength to press the clutch all the way down. Kids learn one thing, then another.

The front of the tractor had a starter drive shaft. You attached a crank and turned it to start the engine. Even as a kid, I remember setting it to the right position and saying “ready”… then Dad would reach in the side and hold the throttle open and I’d pull down on the crank with all my weight, let go, and stand back. This could be a dangerous activity. Most of the time, the engine started with one or two tries. Old as they were, Grandpa’s tractors were pretty well maintained.

hand crank to start engine

By the time I was 5 years old, I knew all the basics of driving a tractor. One day before planting season, after pestering him for the longest time, Dad let me drive the tractor by myself. He and I got up on one and drove east of the farm house into a field of about 40 acres. There was a large, lone tree way out in the middle of it. We drove about halfway to that tree and Dad said I could drive until I got tired or ran out of gas. He also told me not to hit the tree, then climbed off the tractor as it was moving, and walked back to the house.

I was nervous. At first.

I drove back and forth doing nothing special. Then I made a lot of circles, because that’s NOT what you usually do when driving in a field… but it makes for a bumpy, jerky ride as the front and back ends buck up and down. I practiced a lot of tight turns, the hardest maneuver on a tractor when doing real work. I went fast, I went slow. I even changed gears using both feet on the clutch.

My limited experience with tractors has lead to an adult aversion to cruises and cruise ships. While I loved to ride on the tractor for a while, it is a very boring activity… drive straight for the ENTIRE length of a field, break the monotony with an exciting 180 degree turn, and then come back down that ENTIRE field again, only about 12 feet over. If you’re “in” for the beginning, you’re “in” for at least a full lap which could take quite a while. Tractors typically don’t travel fast. It could be excruciating to a little person with a short attention span. As an adult, a cruise ship seems like a similarly big commitment to me.

Finally, I pointed the tractor west into the sun. I steered onto the main road and rolled down the drive to the farm house, slowing as I got close. Dad came out and hopped on while I was turning toward the open area where the tractors, plows, and other equipment were parked.

There were also a couple of broken down Model A pickups on the side under some big mesquite trees, rusted and surrounded by weeds. I’d sometimes pretend to drive them (checking first for snakes, scorpions, and spiders, of course).

Dad and I walked back to the house together. I told him I could drive now. He agreed.