NOTE: I do NOT own rights to the music used in this video. All music credits go to Willie Nelson and Columbia Records / Granger Smith and Wheelhouse Records / Dierks Bentley and Capitol Records.
In August of 2022, more than two decades after my grandfather's 520 tractor was sold and left the family farm in very rough non-running condition (and 16 years after it left the state of New Jersey), the restored tractor returned to its home state, and made its grand debut in NJ as a "new" tractor again. I hauled it down to a very well-known 4H Fair there that I have attended my whole life, and put it on display with the local gas engine club, of which I have been a member for many years. The tractor proved to be a major hit at the fair, especially among the older farmers who remember the days of using two-cylinder tractors for their vegetable operations, and long-time family friends (especially those who knew my grandfather). The high-clearance vegetable tractors were a staple of farming in that region, so they gather a lot of attention at the local shows. One evening during the fair, several of my relatives came out to finally see the restored tractor and hear it run once again.
On a beautiful Saturday afternoon after a week of sitting on display at the fair, I picked the tractor up and brought it over to the former family homestead where this tractor spent the majority of its life, and where my grandparents and great-grandparents established their roots nearly a century ago. I pulled the machine into my uncle's shop to make a few small adjustments. For old times' sake, I spent the majority of that afternoon driving the tractor through all of the back farm fields and wooded trails that my family used to farm and hunt for many years - several hundred acres that were once wide open vegetable fields that the 520 tractor spent thousands of hours cultivating. Many of those acres have been sold off and either subdivided into houses, taken over by other farms, or grown up into brush. I used to spend hours riding my garden tractors through these fields when I was younger just for fun, but now that a lot of the fields and trails have grown up in weeds (and I've moved away), I rarely have the chance to ride back there anymore. Driving the 520 up and down the fields and the old farm roads really helped bring the memories alive and, as always, helped me reconnect with those who are no longer here on this Earth.
I also drove the tractor around the block and into the neighborhood where I grew up (which was built on top of my grandfather's farm when he sold out). It was bittersweet being able to drive the tractor up and down the neighborhood streets where fields once were. I made sure to take plenty of pictures along the way, and when the sun began to set, I had to return to the fields to capture the scenery - it truly made for some great pictures that evening. I may have gotten a few weird looks from the neighbors and from the cars that passed me on the road, but NOTHING can compare to the feelings of nostalgia I had that day. Combined with the nice weather, it just seemed like a perfect day to christen the restored tractor on its home soil once again, and I'm so glad to be able to have my grandfather's tractor back to drive around and enjoy for years to come. It's the "small" pieces of the family's history, like this 520 tractor, that help to keep the memories of a retired farming family alive - even years after the farm was sold and the land was transformed.