Every once in awhile a truth, which has been hiding in plain sight, suddenly reveals itself. In a recent issue of the Economist there was an article about AI, artificial intelligence. The gist of the article was not about the essence of AI but about the reluctance for some to accept it.
In the article the slow acceptance of farmers to use tractors for power instead of horses was held up as like resistance to AI. It was pointed out that many farmers embraced automobiles before tractors. That opened my eyes to a truth that had long hidden in plain sight. It was a truth about my family.
My father bought his first car in either 1914 or 1915, an Overland. It must have been among the first cars in the township if not the county. Roads were little more than prairie trails. About 1920 he bought a Buick Roadster, his second car. The 1928 Ford Model A, was his third car. It carried my parents, from their wedding in St. Paul to Chicago, Niagara Falls, Washington, D.C., South Carolina and home to South Dakota, on their honeymoon.
When did Dad buy his first tractor? 1941! Twenty seven years after his first car. He was the 'horse man' of the large farming operation with his father and brother. That may have been part of the reason for delaying tractor purchase. Both of his brothers bought tractors before he; one for farming the other for road building. It's one of myriad questions I'd like to ask; why did he delay tractor purchase for so long? But. until the Economist article, I'd never wondered about the gap between purchasing an automobile and a tractor.
Takk for alt,
Al
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