qotd, mostly for my Dad

The tractor is an Allis-Chalmers, a company that went into bankruptcy immediately following my purchase of the machine, and whose closest authorized dealer, as far as I know, is in downstate Illinois.

Worse still, I do not live in downstate Illinois. I live on an island in the Puget Sound, and 2,000 miles is a long way to push a tractor to get it fixed. Not that anybody in Illinois could fix it anyways. The engine is a 920 diesel Lambardini, made in Italy, a country famous for -- and proud of -- its heritage as the manufacturer of the most temperamental engines and transmissions in the world.

-- Pete Dexter, Paper Trails: True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a Surprising Number of Which are Not About Marriage

Comments

[anj]

Have I ever told you about my uncle and his 20+ tractor collection there in upstate NY???

[Adrienne]

I don't think so. Where is he? And why tractors?

My Dad, btw, is not a tractor man. He does have a special place in his heart for Italian engines.

[matthew]

Thought the hillbillies in the audience would be interested in this:
http://post-gazette.com/pg/09097/960981-67.stm?cmpid=newspanel0

PBS's 'Appalachia' examines region's heart and soul
TV Review
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Kevork Djansezian/Associated PressSissy Spacek will narrate the four-part PBS series "Appalachia."Appalachia is in a rarefied limelight this Thursday when PBS airs the first part of an engrossing and beautifully filmed and illustrated series subtitled "A History of Mountains and People."

[matthew]

Appropos of nothing, I once sold 15 copies of "The Secret Life of Dogs" to Sissy Spacek.