By: Stan Jordan
This is sort of a testimonial of a blue and red farm truck that works for Kenny Hahn and Nick Bragg.
I am a 1982 Chevrolet farm truck and I would like to publish my history before I end up in the crusher.
For years, I hauled grain for a nice fellow over in Payne. I liked those folks, we got along fine, but he needed a bigger truck to haul his grain so he put me up for sale.
Kenny Hahn bought my services and I have been here on Hahn Farms ever since. Now, I’m not the only truck on the farm that hauls grain. Kenny has 2 semi outfits also, but I have a little seniority over them.
I don’t work much till it’s soybean harvest time at the end of September. Then Nick will come out to the new barn and take me over to the gas tanks and check my oil and get me ready for the big push. They will fill the semi trailers first and then I and my trailer, “Jenny” come into use. You can cut beans from about noon till supper time or a little later according to the dew.
What we don’t get to the elevator that evening we take over in the morning while someone gets the combine ready for a day’s work. And someone is working up the bean ground so it will be ready for corn next spring. Everybody works on the farm, even some extra long days at harvest time. They keep me and Jenny and the 2 big trucks ready at all times. That’s the way it goes, about two weeks and we have soybeans combined and a lot of the corn ground worked up.
Those big semis will haul about a thousand bushels of grain and I and Jenny about 700 bushel all together.
I don’t know why, but Mike and Nick would rather drive one of the big semi trucks. Well, yes they do have more power, but I have a 427 engine. One time Nick was driving me and we had a big load and right in down town Antwerp my tranny stuck in fourth gear right under the light. I couldn’t move and the traffic was held up and the police came and said, “What’s the trouble?” Nick said, “I can’t move, it’s in fourth gear, stuck there and I can’t get it out of fourth.
Someone called the elevator and they came over with a tractor and chain and pulled us down to the elevator and got us out of the city traffic.
As luck would have it, one of the boys there waiting in line knew what to do and he got my tranny out of fourth gear and we went on from there.
It’s according to the weather, but we might get a few days being a little slower till the corn is dry enough to combine. Then it’s “Nellie hold hold the nanny goat” at corn time on Hahn Farms. Everybody works early morning till late at night, Sunday and all, and probably an extra driver or so. Just like in the beans, they fill the big trucks and then me and Jenny; this goes on till we are done with the corn.
It makes no difference if it’s eastern standard time or Russian standard time, we work around the clock.
It is usually Kenny and Nick doing the farming, but at corn combining time we need about 3 more drivers and me and Jenny do a lot of road work.
Then all at once, the busy work is done. Kenny and Nick make the necessary repairs on the equipment. Then Nick cleans everything and washes and waxes everything before they put it away.
They take Jenny and me out to the new barn and we get pushed back in the far, northwest corner. Jenny gets nothing, but I get about two quarts of Zerex for the winter.
I guess Kenny is going to put me up for sale. I’m sure sorry about that, I like all these boys.
See ya!
