PORT MATILDA — The last time Quay Reese saw the John Deere G tractor, sometime around 1975, he figured that was exactly what it was — the last time he would see the trademark green and yellow workhorse.
He had put thousands of hours of seat time on it, plowing and dicing the fields on the farm in Reese Hollow in the spring, then mowing those fields and baling the hay in the furnace-like heat of the summer. When you do that, a bond forms even if the machine has no heart or soul. It still has a special place in your heart. Maybe on your butt, too.
Yet, by 1975, the tractor had been worn down and it was sold. On the farm, there’s little room for sentiment. Practicality rules.
But over the years, Reese and his brothers, sons and relatives often talked about the “G” as if it had blood running through the fuel lines instead of gasoline.
“It was the tractor I drove all the time,’’ he said. “I did everything with that tractor. Those old John Deeres never wore out. They just ran. I never knew what happened to it until it showed up.’’
That’s what this story is really all about, when the “G” showed up on Sunday afternoon at the Baptist Church in Port Matilda.
June 25 was Reese’s 80th birthday and his children wanted to surprise him with something special at a party the day before.
And, thanks to some Internet sleuthing, they pulled it off. They found the “G.”
Many times in the course of a conversation, Reese would recite the G’s serial number, ‘3033,’ as though it was a grandchild’s birthday.
That’s how his grandson Brandon found it. One day, a John Deere G, serial No. 3033, popped up for sale on the Internet. It was being sold by a man in Whitehouse Station, N.J., 233 miles from Reese Hollow.
“We figured it was probably in a junkyard or in a fence row somewhere,’’ said Jeff Reese, Quay’s son. “Dad had pretty well worn it out. But the man who had it had it about 95 percent restored, but two years ago he got cancer and wasn’t able to finish it, so his son put it up for sale.
“We would look for it at trade shows, or if there was a sale somewhere we’d check and see if they had the G. But until two weeks ago, we didn’t know where it was.’’
They do now. It’s in the bus garage in Port Matilda.
But before it got there, it made a side trip to the church.
‘The kids said, ‘C’mon outside, we have something to show you,’’ Quay said. “And there it was. I think they were more tickled about it than I would have been. It really wasn’t that big of a surprise. I didn’t know they had bought it. They talked about buying it, but I didn’t know they had.’
So, one more time, Quay Reese climbed aboard the old “G” like a familiar old saddle horse, and drove it to the end of the street and back to the church. There were no furrows to be plowed, no hay wagon following along behind it, just a man and his tractor covering some ground one more time.
“It’s a memory tractor,’’ he said. “It never leaves your mind.’’
