Like most small towns across this country, Puyallup hosted their annual festival;?ÿ Meeker Days
Ezra Meeker helped blaze the Oregon Trail, and every year we celebrate that on the 3rd weekend in June.?ÿ
I like seeing the old ???? tractors; only a few this year. Guess there just isn't the interest there used to be?ÿ
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Like a few other folks on this site, I was driving one of these as soon as my feet could reach the peddles.
Fond memories...
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Dougie?ÿ
Not gonna say it.?ÿ Not gonna say it.
The owners have a small fortune invested in restoring those tractors.?ÿ Ford, Farmall Cub, Ferguson (or Ford-Ferguson), John Deere, Farmall M.?ÿ The tires alone would buy someone a basic used car.?ÿ Plus, the hours required to get everything cleaned up prior to the hours of painting.?ÿ One visible part at a time in some cases.
A good friend has a number of Oliver tractors.?ÿ One was in his shop for three years.
Current chariot has a 57:1 crawl ratio but not enough clearance, being essentially a lowered Bronco.
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The younger generation has no interest in putting in that kind of effort?ÿ
A decade ago, 2 Streets were lined with dozens and dozens of old farm ???? machinery?ÿ
Today, we're down to this...
Wondering how it's come to this, and how it got this far ???? ???? ?????ÿ
Most of those tractors are about 70 years old.?ÿ Having a connection to when it was being used almost daily is what typically spurs a collector and renovator.?ÿ By the 1960's, tractor size kept growing.?ÿ If someone would like to renovate one of this model, I would make them a heck of a deal.?ÿ Crawling up to get in the cab is a trip.
A local small town had a Minneapolis-Moline dealer for decades.?ÿ One year about 30 years ago for their annual celebration they requested owners of such tractors to bring them to town for the parade.?ÿ Some were trucked in from over 100 miles away.?ÿ Some had been restored, but, many were as-is.?ÿ More than 100 M-M tractors went through the parade.?ÿ Nearly that many more of John Deere, IH, A-C and Ford models made the parade the longest in the history of their celebration.
Any kind of nostalgia starts maybe 25 years after something goes out of common use, peaks later, and fades as those who remember the use die off. After that, rarity is the principle interest of collectors.
@dougie farming has got so industrialized that most of the machinery is two lanes wide and only seen in its native habitat.
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All the festivals in Georgia are named after either food or insects.?ÿ Grits Festival, Gnat Festival, etc.?ÿ Well, we also have the rattlesnake roundup in Whigham.
Andy
One nearby city celebrates on Flag Day weekend every year.?ÿ It's simply the Flag Day Celebration.?ÿ Another county seat city is Columbus, which celebrates (What else?) Columbus Day.?ÿ Many simply use the town name followed by Day or Days.?ÿ Another county seat town @squirl has the Mad Bomber Day and the Mad Bomber Run (5k) that comes with a strange bit of history.?ÿ My wife's hometown celebrates the Tri-State Antique Engine and Thresher Show as their big event of the year.?ÿ Boise City, Oklahoma has Santa Fe Trail Daze as their annual wingding, although the route was some distance to the north and west.?ÿ The Cimarron Cutoff Route, that is.?ÿ Pittsburg, Kansas celebrates Little Balkans Days every fall in honor of the wide variety of immigrants who came to work the coal, lead and zinc mines in the area in the early days.
Some years the contestants in the Mad Bomber Run have a "drag race" with all contestants required to dress as the opposite gender.?ÿ The local paper one year made quite a story out of the "drag race".?ÿ One of the featured photos had the fellow quoted in the following story shown in his female get-up.?ÿ He made a rather attractive presence.?ÿ By the way, if you were to do a google search on his name you would discover he was the Kansas Secretary of Commerce before becoming the Kansas Lieutenant Governor.
If you??ve got enough of it, Friday night is the night to let your hair down.
One sure test is to participate in the ??Drag Race? as a runup to the Charlie Melvin Mad Bomber Run For Your Life race.
Men and women alike are encouraged to dress in a cross-gender manner and then ??compete? in teams of four in a relay. Last year a woman??s garter was transferred from one participant??s leg to another.
??It??s better than a baton,? said David Toland, executive director of Thrive Allen County and one of the organizers for Friday??s events.
One day a fellow worker came in and said he was watching a Johnny Carson show episode with seven Marilyn Monroe look-a-likes.
He mentioned how good they all looked and then surprised us with the news that they were all men.
In the late 1800's there were a lot of "Old Settlers" reunions where those who had lived in an area since early settlement days got together. Most have faded away.
The one in my hometown became a big deal and has been celebrated the 2nd Saturday of August every year since 1883 with the exception of 2020 Covid and maybe the 1918 flu.
In my younger days it was the big event of the year. Two block long carnival. Greased pole with envelope of money at the top for strong guys to climb. Checker tournament. Local jeweler donated a Timex to be dropped from a plane and the young men clamored over each other to get it, still ticking. Square dance on the street.
It's tapered off in recent years. Hard to get a decent carnival that can do enough business when kids have been to 6 Flags, etc. so mostly kiddie rides and a hatchet throw booth. Attendance is down overall.
I've been there on that day every year of my life except for the missing Covid year.
They still have 5 & 10 k run and 2-mile fun walk. Kids races. Firefighters water fight (pushing a barrel with the stream).
A 20-minute parade, including antique cars and tractors, politicians, Fair queen, church floats, school band. Maybe horses, but fewer than used to be. Maybe Shriner clowns.
Local organizations have food stands. Alumnus who made good gives a speech. Prizes for oldest man, woman, longest married, came from furthest away. Quilt show. Musical act in PM and evening. Rock band at night.
All the school reunions, usually every 5 years for a class, happen some time that weekend.
Quite a bit going on for a town of 1600 in a county of 6500 people.
My town's festival is the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Festival. The winner of the cow chip throw qualifies for the World championships in Beaver, OK. A local surveyor uses his GPS for measurements. https://www.wiscowchip.com/
They Celebrate the Summer Solstice, in Fremont, by riding bikes, naked....
I think @half-bubble might live in the area, at least closer than me; he might have some 'insight'
Local town here has Founders Day for a week every August.?ÿ Back in 1964 when Barkley Lake was impounded, it flooded most of the town of Eddyville, except for the Ky. State Penitentiary.?ÿ The rest of the town relocated to a new site a few miles north on farmland donated by a successful attorney who grew up here.?ÿ Since then there has been a Founders Day.?ÿ Used to have tractor pull, carnival, circus, parade, etc, now I think it's mostly just the parade.?ÿ Most vivid memory I have of it was the year the circus came, not sure how old I was.?ÿ They had a round circus tent with bleachers all around.?ÿ While the elephants were performing, one of them who had apparently been eating beans decided it had to go, just as it was spinning around in a circle.?ÿ We didn't get hit, but there were several on the front row that got sprayed with a good dose of elephant poo.?ÿ Not sure they ever did another circus after that.?ÿ?ÿ
I grew up in Angels Camp, California, the home of the Jumping Frog Jubilee. Our high school mascot was the bullfrog, which was less than intimidating to our sports opponents.?ÿ
https://www.gocalaveras.com/business/festivals-events/calaveras-county-fair-jumping-frog-jubilee/
In the 1970's, the Hell's Angels (and others) took over the whole town. We only had one police officer who doubled as a City Maintenance worker. The next year, SWAT and Riot teams from all over the state showed up. It took a few years for it to return to a "normal" event.
https://calisphere.org/item/2a0000e854a159574a1c30d7752612a4/
I thought you meant Fremont, Nebraska and I couldn't imagine sane Cornhuskers doing that.?ÿ So I clicked on your link and understood immediately.
