Reminiscing

[TIGman 2,006]

  Was doing a little bit of reminiscing about the riding mower my folks had when I was a kid. . Hoping all the time Dad would come home with a nice  garden tractor, I kept mowing lawn with our little Huffy Hawk 5hp riding mower..... With that little 24" deck I wish I had a dollar for every hour spent mowing our large city lot.  It's a wonder the tranny held up at all.... I used to pop" Wheelies" with it all the time...

 In the late 60's one of the City workers would be mowing around the City water pump house with a Wheel Horse and ask if I wanted to race. lol 

Found this photo of a Huffy Hawk on the internet.  

[cschannuth 3,795]

 The steering wheel is almost as big as the deck. LOL. 

[Sparky-(Admin) 19,540]

Cool story and memory. 

  Our first rider was a Bradford Stinger...came from a department store called Grants in Manchester Connecticut. I would have been around 8 or 9 years old and my brother a couple years younger. We were home with my mom when the delivery guy from Grants dropped it off in our driveway. He gave my mom a lesson on how to use it and all its features while my brother and I stared on wide eyed at the coolest thing we had ever laid eyes on. I still remember to this day the last thing the delivery guy said....he turned to my brother and I and said in his deep scary voice " This is not a go-cart and neither of you kids should ever try to use it!". And then he was gone.

  He had dropped it off at the end of the driveway right in the middle of the driveway and my mom knew it had to be moved because my dad would be home soon. She turned the key a few times and it wouldn't even turn over....she looked at me and I said " I can do it". I jumped on and barely reached the pedal, the same pedal that mom was not pushing when she hit the key but I remembered the delivery guy saying that the pedal must be pushed to start. I hit the key and it fired right up and I drove it to the back yard proud as heck. 

  Couldn't wait to tell dad at I was a pro at this tractor driving stuff and that I would gladly mow the whole yard!!

Mike.....

[squonk 38,916]

I used to scrap a bunch of those Bradford/MonteCarlo's 

 

I started out mowing 3 acres with a 604 and 32" deck.Used  it until 1977 when we sold the house. Went thru 4 Tecky's mowing and plowing snow.  I kept hoping my Dad would come home with something bigger.

I remember drooling over pics of the D series when they came out.

[cafoose 3,141]

1 hour ago, squonk said:

I used to scrap a bunch of those Bradford/MonteCarlo's 

The first tractor my dad got was a Bradford/Monte Carlo 8hp. We had fun mowing tall grass and small trees with him. Sometimes he would borrow the neighbor's Wheel Horse for the heavy stuff. When my dad wasn't home we did wheelies and donuts in it!

The trans-axle blew apart and when he was rebuilding it he said he wondered why that happened?

[ClassicTractorProfessor 5,261]

I can remember mowing at my great-granddad's house with a DynaMark like this one when I was a kid. That was the same mower my mother wrecked by running into a steel corner post when she was about 15, she was mowing the yard and was paying more attention to the high school guys hauling wheat to the elevator across the road than she was to where she was going . I ended up with the mower after granddad passed away, mowed for quite a while with it around the barns and corrals at the farm...sadly it was inside our hay barn when it caught fire a few yrs back and was a total loss, I've always wanted to find another one like it

[ACman 7,506]

My first memory of mowing is when I was 6/7 years old . We had a Case (should go dig it out of the poll barn , literally it's halfway buried from a woodchuck) I remember drawing on paper on how to do my lines . Then my brother showed me how to start it up and mow . Then I also remember going to our Allis Chalmers store and sitting on the 15-30 hp diesels scut's and wondering why we didn't have one at the farm . Grandpa loved to sell the new ones and we take the trades home and use them until he sold them . Maybe there was some thinking behind his madness . We always had a mower on the farm and we knew it worked before he resold it . Man I always wanted one of those AC5020's . It'll have to wait now because now I have a WH520 to play with  !

[squonk 38,916]

I remmber a guy I worked with about 20 yrs. ago had a pile of those Bradford/Monte's/Dynamark clones. My B I L  and I went and filled the truck with them. He wanted them gone. I think we built 2 out of the pile and circular filed the rest. We did keep an 8 HP Briggsy floating around. One day we decided to see if it would run. We set it on a barrell hooked up a gas tank and some wires for the starter. Keep in mind there was no governor linkage or muffler on this beauty. We cranked it up and it literally took off. We forgot it being a mag ign. WE HAD NO WAY TO TURN IT OFF!!!  

 

VROOOOOMMM!!!!!!!

 

My B I L still runs across a Dynamark to sell every year. 

 

 

 

Edited November 27, 2016 by squonk

[953 nut 51,656]

Growing up my dad never saw the need for a riding garden tractor; after-all, he had two healthy sons that could push mowers and walk behind rototillers. When my brother went into the Army I had the whole deal (about an acre of garden and 2 acres of lawn) to myself, the next year I joined the Navy.  ------- The next week dad went to the Massey Harris dealership and came home with a 10HP with 42" mower and a tiller! When I came home from boot camp he said I could use it rather than the walk behind. 

7 hours ago, TIGman said:

With that little 24" deck I wish I had a dollar for every hour spent mowing our large city lot.

A dollar an hour for mowing would have been good money back then!    

[Dan Hankins 80]

Dad had a cub cadet 106 that he still mows with sometimes and grandpa had a cub cadet 104 that is now mine.

 

[WVHillbilly520H 10,369]

The "beast" (CUB CADET Original) I grew up on and dad still mows with occasionally, I cleaned it up a bit the end of summer,Jeff

[cschannuth 3,795]

I don't have pics of either but dad had an old Wizard rear engine rider and then a Dynamark before he bought the '78 C-161 in '80 shown in my avatar. I flipped both of those cheapies over backwards on myself on our steep hills. Luckily the mowers received most of the damage. 

[ohiofarmer 3,157]

2 hours ago, WVHillbilly520H said:

The "beast" (CUB CADET Original) I grew up on and dad still mows with occasionally, I cleaned it up a bit the end of summer,Jeff

 

[ohiofarmer 3,157]

  Yep, that's the one. A no numbers Cadet because it was the first one. Dad mowed for years and years with his and went through an engine and two short blocks. When he retired from farming, he chose to mow all the side ditches and along the creek bank all with that little 38" mower! And the mighty 7HP Kohler...

 

  That is why I bought my first Raider after owning two twins [416 and 520H]

 

 You can never get over how nice a cast iron Kohler sounds if you grew up on one.  Previous to the Cadet we mowed with two Bolens walk mowers that were self propelled, but mowing over an acre each still got us tired and kept us out of trouble. We did not just watch the crops grow all summer either. I will never forget how happy we were when the last of eighty acres of soybeans were hoed by hand to catch the weeds the cultivator missed.

[Wishin4a416 2,185]

My buddies Dad was one of the first ones to own a rider in my old neighborhood. It was a blue and white Penncraft from Penny's. He used to abuse it bad also but it held up.I always wondered to that little thing. I found this picture on the net. My Dads first was a Sears GT 14. A yellow and white one.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Wishin4a416