The event benefits the Hampshire County 4-H and the Massachusetts Future Farmers of America.
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Detail of a 1951 Farmall tractor. Sunday drivers. Argghhhh. They slow you down. They appear not to know where they’re going. They brake for the slightest change of scenery.
Stop! Stop the complaining, and think about it a minute.
When was the last time you took a ride to nowhere in particular, stopped along the way to listen to a brook babbling over rocks or take in the aroma of a new-mown meadow? Have you looked closely at a skunk cabbage before it’s unfurled to its full glory, both in plant and potion?
Have you ever gotten to an intersection where you don’t know whether to go right or left? Try taking turns with your passengers to pick which way to go and see where it leads?
It’s more fun to do this all unplugged – no GPS, no cell phone, no distractions, just like a true Sunday driver, just like my mom and dad back in the day with their two kids in the back seat and knowledge that somewhere along the way there’d be a place for an ice cream cone, a bigger bite to eat or a visit to some friend we hadn’t seen in a dog’s age.
There are still people out there who take great stock in the simple things in life, take the time to slow down and savor a little bit of simplicity.
Take Francis and Linda Judd, of Lithia, for example.
If you don’t know it, Lithia is on the downhill side of Goshen as you head west along Route 9, a little slice of heaven where a third generation of Judds is now earning a living and raising their families as they extract that famous Goshen stone from their hills.
Winters can be a little longer there than for those of us folks who live “downtown.” By the time May arrives, it’s not just time to plant, it’s also time to celebrate, have some fun and spend time with neighbors and friends.
Several years ago, Fran Judd was part of a group of snowplow operators who, in the midst of their nights between plow runs, were mulling over something to do to get them out of the funk of their winter; inspired by a show they’d caught on the RFD-TV network for country living, they conceived the idea of a tractor ride, a popular event in Midwest farm country.
These New Englanders thought they could turn the fun into a fund-raiser for two youth groups that play a key role in keeping up the lifestyle they lead and love: the Hampshire County 4-H Fair and the Massachusetts Future Farmers of America.
“We were just looking for something different to do,” Fran Judd explains. “We thought about it for at least year before the first one took place.” Even as they were in the midst of their first event, some people weren’t convinced it would be a success, he confided.
This year’s ride on May 19 will be the sixth annual Hillside Agricultural Tractor and Engine Club’s 30-mile tractor ride. They hope to have close to 70 tractors head out on a route from Cummington Fairgrounds; afterwards there will be a chicken barbecue. And, for kids, there will be a garden tractor pull in which they can compete while the adults are out traveling on their Internationals, Massey-Fergusons and John Deeres.
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This is a 1931 F-30 Tractor owned by Philip Judd, of Goshen, shown here on display at a tractor show in 2011. To participate in the ride, tractors must be able to travel at least 12 mph, and the top speed along the way will only be about 30 mph. The committee makes certain there’s a team pulling up the rear in case any of the equipment hits a problem. (Linda Judd usually takes on that duty, her husband said.)
“It’s worked out well,” Fran Judd said of the event’s success over the years. They’ve had tractors come from Bennington, Vt. and North Branford, Conn., and from out east in Barre.
“Some are construction workers, some are farmers and some are just people who like tractors,” he said. “ We have had them from the 1940s to one fresh off the shelf.”
For Judd, the allure of the event is as simple as the fact he grew up with tractors in his life; his first memory of driving one on his own was at age 6. “I’ve grown up with them, so it’s just another passion to me,” he explains. Their son, Philip, owns the oldest of the 25 tractors in the family, which dates back to the 1920s.
The family still owns the first two tractors his father, the late George Judd, bought to start his stone business. “One was brand-new when he got it, and the other was 6-months-old, both International Farmalls,” Francis Judd says.
No tractor? No problem. Sign up by May 12, and you can enjoy the barbecue, a chance to mix and mingle with everyone and see the tractors close-up. It does mean you have to take a Sunday drive of your own up the Berkshire Trail, right through Lithia, and Swift River as you find your way to the fairgrounds.
What Fran Judd says is the most fun about the tractor rides is catching up with people you haven’t seen in years, and people who you “hadn’t expected to know each other.” Â