My nearly four-year-old son has a way of saying “issa BANdon TRACtor!” (“it’s an abandoned tractor”), of everything from a cardboard box to a log he yanked off the woodpile, that could make a mechanic, or archaeologist, out of pretty much anyone, on the spot.
His enthusiasm for this trope, of the powerful thing forgotten and rediscovered, is bowstring-taut, continually edging on complete disbelief. His mind is blown. That there could be such a thing, that the fortune to stumble upon it could be bestowed upon him, that such brute force could reside among the brambles untended until his eyes and hands and feet find it— all of this not only speaks of the good fortune we have to be alive, but IS life itself, for this little boy.
Lucky for him, he lives near an orchard, and can explore actual abandoned tractors almost at will— so long as his trusty sidekick Grampy is there to tag along and prevent the most obvious flirtations with Tetanus.
The “Old Inner-ASHinal” (International brand tractor) in our eastern hedge is a favorite, as some of its levers still move, though most of the seat was removed by mice a long time ago and a few sumac trees are growing up through its many, opening joints.
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I, friends, am an abandoned tractor.