Hey Dennis! Yeah, there's a fairly green-spot in town here year'round... but there's an old factory just down the street that's now used as commercial storage, but if you go in and look along the walls, you'll see pictures of big, beautiful red machines painted in about 3/4 scale, with names of the engineers, shop crews, foremen, etc. all signed around 'em.
I watched in the early '80's, with sadness, as we drove by the gates, where guys sitting in lawn-chairs with signs, heard about the battling on the news, and when it all came down to it, the unions both won, and lost. They held out 'till the company couldn't, so the company gave up and left. I know a whole lotta ex-Farmall/Case/IH guys that're now fighting to keep their retirement and pensions from getting laundered-off in sacrificial 'holding' companies. It was a tough time, and it brings a tear to my eye when I see those pictures on the wall. It was a sad ending to a great legacy. I lost lots of school classmates in that- moved away with folks taking transfers or looking for work elsewhere.
But dad isn't gonna part with his little green thing any time soon. He's decided that although the Snapper is much more nimble, the deck doesn't mow as well as the Green... and... in his words, the green 'really sucks', while the Snapper tends to clog. I doubt the 127 will ever see a bagger (and he insists on bagging clippings).
My thinkin' is that he'll use the lawn-tractor to do the lawnmowing, and the Cub Cadet to do the REAL work!
