38 Cornbinder pickup when I was 8 and shortly after we moved from town out to our new farm. My Dad had a load of manure on the back that he wanted to toss off with a pitchfork, and he didn't see why I shouldn't be able to slowly drive the pickup around that open field. I was a little guy, but by sitting on the very edge of the seat, I could push the clutch pedal in enough to put the thing in gear. Unfortunately Dad had not explained that it was important to slowly let out the clutch pedal. With my Dad on top of the load of manure holding a pitchfork, I dumped the clutch on the old International. The sudden movement caused my Dad and about a third of the manure to go off the back of the truck and land in a big pile. I didn't immediately have sense enough to push in the clutch pedal again and Dad had set the hand throttle at a very fast idle speed. So I kept driving...and at least steered around the tree at the edge of the field that I could have hit. All this time my Dad was yelling at me to stop and was up and running after the pickup.
I finally figured out that I should push the clutch pedal about the time my Dad caught up with the pickup. By then he was laughing so hard that he seemed to forget that he had manure all over his pants and that I had done something dumb. He then gave me a more complete driving lesson and within about a half hour, I was moving the pickup around the field properly in short sections while he tossed off the rest of the manure.
At that time I was so little that I could not reach the gas pedal in that pickup without standing up, but I found that I could use the hand throttle pretty well. I also could not push the brake pedal and the clutch pedal at the same time, but I soon learned that if I pulled the transmission out of gear, pushing the brake pedal didn't kill the engine. I got to be a reasonably good operator of that old pickup that Fall, but I don't think I ever got above compound low. Even so, I guess I thought it was pretty big stuff.
Not much later, my Dad had me driving our Farmall Cub and a little later than that the VAC Case that replaced the too-small Cub. But my driving experience all started in that old army green IHC. I sure wish I had it today!
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Today's Featured Article - Restoration Story: 1951 Farmall H - by The Red (John Fritz). I have been a collector of Farmall tractors since 1990 when I first obtained part of the family farm in Eastern Indiana. My current collection includes a 1938 F20, 1945 H, 1946 H, and the recently purchased 1951 H. This article will focus on what I encountered and what I did to bring the 1951 NEAR DEATH Farmall H back to life.
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