Hood Release

I love the way two word titles can be so ambiguous. D, getting his terminal degree, an MFA in Hood Release, succeeded where everyone else, including the best mechanic on the creek (who was next going to cut a hole, to get to the release mechanism) as James and I watched closely. We'd (James and I) tried for an hour last week, and were buying in to the whole hole-cutting procedure. The trick was sticking a very stout screwdriver in exactly the right place. We all suspected that, and poked around, but D found it. Now I don't really need to get it fixed, because it's my screwdriver, and I now know where to poke it. If you've ever owned a tractor, you'd know that you never get anything fixed that you can poke, tie together (baling wire, I carry a roll in my truck), or bang the side of to get going. It's a rule. I've owned two tractors, and ancient tricycle John Deere, and a magnificent Ford 8-N. A 1947 tractor, with 24 horsepower, that, with the linotype machine, rank at the top of American manufacturing. You can still get every part for this tractor, you could put one together from new parts, and today it would cost, in parts, over $10,000, that sold for $800 new, I paid $500 for mine, but that was more a token, to a distant and aging relative in the Missip years. Doc Watson's son was killed in a tractor accident, and they are common, like chainsaw accidents. Let's not think about accidents. Two quarts low on oil, which was my fear, and I had the two quarts right there, and now I can open the hood. The traditional 8-N is Ford gray, with red detail, a lovely thing. I had a great mechanic in Missip, Rip Raper, who became the mayor of Duck Hill, and he did some work on it, steam cleaned and painted it. When it came to the painting, he came over to the house, for a home-brew and a chat. Seems the actual John Deere colors were quite expensive, but he painted vehicles, and he had a lot of left-over paint, high-quality stuff, a quart of this, a quart of that; and if he could just mix them together, he wouldn't charge me for the paint. Sure, I said, what do I care what color the damned thing is. I may have owned the only purple Ford 8-N ever. Big Roy thought it was very cool, that a white boy (he loved calling me a white boy), that wasn't gay, would drive such a thing. He'd bring his coon hunting buddies over, to watch me plow a field. It doesn't seem true now, but at the time, I always had a gallon of moonshine on hand. Moonshine capital of the world, and there were three or four guys that made very good shine. Twenty bucks a gallon, usually in a Coke syrup plastic jug. Roy had the run of my house, and he knew where the liquor was stored, he'd make a high sign and I'd wave him inside. I'm disking a corn field, and pretty soon, there are five dudes drinking on my front porch, watching me disk a field. I loved it, I've got to say. It's hard to talk about the ten years there, without wrongly profiling. We lived in the boonies and didn't socialize. Is there a thread here? And how do I address race issues when most of my friends then were black. I'm strongly conflicted here, because I'm to write about that time, and about a projection I made, nothing, against a background of nothing. I only do that because I can. Words allow me that. Sometimes phrases might be questionable. We strike a balance.