Greatest thing you ever got, or bought?

20 yrs ago, On a whim I took a $25 class in TV production from a public access cable channel; it Opened the door to a new life changing profession.

Back in eighty nine I bought a seventy seven ford twenty six hundred tractor with back blade, six foot snowblower, post hole digger and back blade with a front end loader on it with five foot bucket. It was the best seven grand I spent. Still have the tractor and when I bought it it had about eight hundred hours on it, now it has about twenty three hundred hours on it.

Still worth the seven grand I paid for it, although I did buy a new two stage blower for it for two grand and sold the old single stage blower for three hundred bucks.

I did not use it in my business, but it sure saved me a lot of money while I had it. I bought a two bottom plow and spring harrow for a hundred bucks too and did put about six hundred bucks in it for maintenance over the years, that hydraulic and transmission fluid is not cheap, neither are the hydraulic filters, and neither are batteries for it. points and plugs and plug wires were not too costly, neither were the coil and the voltage regulator. It did not cost too much to get the starter rebuilt either years back. Had it for thirty five years now, It has been a decent tractor. I thought about buying a new one...Holy Crap...are tractors expensive new. A comparable tractor with all the loader is over fifty grand now and the engine and transmissions are way chintzy compared to this one.

But that is the best thing I have bought that retained it's value.

Mother said from the age of 2 I would freak out and point while saying "Plane" when an aircraft would fly over. The Convair B-36 traffic pattern was not to far from the house so their rumble could be heard from both near and far away... The turbocharger whine of the DC-7 compared to the DC-6 was an easy way to tell them apart as they made their approach into Amon Carter Field. The last B-36 "made" was parked at Amon Carter airport as a display piece and was available for viewing once upon a time.. Dunno if it is still there now ?

I always knew what I wanted to do in life so for me a sweet/best accomplishment was getting my ATP (airline transport rating) and my flight engineer rating which I used in this life to make a living with. Flight engineer rating was the harder of the two requiring more study time IMO.

To say I have had a lucky and good life is an understatement IMO.. Set goals work hard and retire well...what more can a fella ask for ?

A negative paternity test.

There's a whole weird back story to that but trust me, that's one of the best things I've ever got.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Dude! Reading this? I jumped back from a spot-welder in a tubing factory in '83 that had no safety screen.

12 feet. No joke. Don't think I ever moved that fast...except running from one of my ex wives!
😁✌️

The most useful thing, hands down a Bob Cat front end loader. I got my first one about 25 yeas ago. They have attachments that do everything.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

Just wait 'till you're laying under a boat trailer in your driveway welding on a 8" piece of galvanized tube steel (with the galvanic coating ground off around the weld, of course!) and you get one of those little molten slab bumblefarkers right down the back as you lean up to see your weld!

The first thing you do is prang your melon on the nearest solid steel member above you, which knocks off your helmet and your hat (and your rubber), and knocks ya' sensless!. Then..ya' lay down right on that molten farker and realize yer on FIRE!! ...UNDER the damn boat trailer, ya' are!! Holy everything not Holy!!

Then ya' do the high-speed caterpillar walk with some molten hot sh!t in yer coveralls, prayin' for daylight. Just hopin' that hot sh!t don't roll down your butt crack, don't ya know!! That'd be bad, bad, BAD!! You fellas with boxers might wanna' rethink things here! I'm right tellin' ya!!. But, I'll leave that to another post!

Cheers!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I see you're prob still up w the critters, prob cold mornings too...n ..how is/was...your shoulder surg was it?

a reply to: mysterioustranger

The surgery itself went great. The recovery, on the other hand, was a total B****!!! I had no idea it would be that long, or that bad! I'd severed 3 of the 4 tendons in the shoulder and the 4th was torn almost in half. Bicep tendon was completely severed. Rotator cuff was completely blown out.

I had a hip replacement surgery a year after the shoulder and walked out of the hospital the same day, and was walking around in a few days, but I was still nursing the dang shoulder even a year later.