The Absent Uncle: The old rototiller

When I was in my early teen years, I remember my Dad driving home with a green and white piece of machinery sticking out of the trunk of the Studebaker. 

Helping him unload the machine, I was thrilled to find he had purchased a rototiller! A new motorized device that we could use in the large garden to initially till up the soil for planting and in some places to weed the garden during the growing season.

For some time, Dad had tried to use our full-size tractor and field implements to prepare the garden, and augment that effort with spades and hoes. It was a lot of work – and I could see myself being freed of some of that labor with this new machine.

Like a couple of excited kids, we immediately had to try it out in an area called the “sand pit”.  Up the hill from the house was an open pit that had for years provided gravel and sand for various uses around the farm. 

The loose sand would provide an excellent testing ground for how to control and use the tiller. 

With a couple of pulls on the rope starter, the machined roared to life and we were tilling sand and just thrilled with how smooth it ran and how well it worked – until it stopped with sudden and certain sound from the engine. We couldn’t get the pull rope to even turn the engine to restart it.

The cause? In our excitement, we, of course, had not read the instructions, and the note that the engine came with no oil installed and needed to be filled. The engine had seized up – kaput! 

This discovery was devastating. It was nearing the time that my Dad would head for his afternoon/night shift at a local plant and lunch was ready for us, so as we headed for the house he told me six words he very rarely ever said to me: “Don’t tell your Mom about this.” 

I never did. 

The next day, we revisited the sand pit and much to our delight after adding the oil and sitting overnight the engine had loosened and “unseized”. It ran, badly, but it ran.   

He used that old rototiller for years, and my brother, who purchased the farm continued to use it for many more years – always complaining about how badly it ran. It just became part of the process. 

Secrets kept. Let’s just keep this between us.