Before pride drives the tractor through the fence

Sagebrush was starting to encroach on a field my father-in-law had painstakingly cleared over the years. So this week, I climbed onto his old tractor and did some mowing, unsupervised. In rural Montana, that hardly qualifies as news, but I’m putting it on my résumé.

First, it’s bigger than a riding mower, which makes it a large tractor in my estimation. Second, it’s old. I believe it was originally built to pull a chariot.

When you have spent years being the person others depend on, admitting you need help can catch in your throat.

I remember my father-in-law stopping at our Nashville home while hauling it west on a trailer. Ronald Reagan was president, and the tractor wasn’t new then.

For most of my adult life, we lived five