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From the Model T to the PCBy Ken Root Grandpa yelled, "WHOA!" as the Model T hit the side of the house. That's the family story of my grandfather, Chester Eli Root, who was born in 1859 and bought a Model T Ford in 1913 following a good cotton crop in central Oklahoma. Grandpa was the first generation to drive a car and attempt to make the difficult transition from one type of horsepower to another. My generation is the first to use a computer and the parallels are striking. His generation awkwardly embraced the new-fangled internal combustion engine and brought rural America into the modern age, while mine is trying to refine communications and business but often winds up with similar problems. The inspiration for these comments comes from the historical documentation that Henry Ford started making cars a hundred years ago. He introduced the automobile to the common man with the Model T as the first mass produced vehicle. Ford said you could have it in any color as long as it was black. He possessed an overpowering personality and made many enemies during his long and productive life, but he left a company and a legacy that exists to this day. Compare this to Bill Gates and the dominance of Microsoft in the computer age. Henry Ford, maybe more than anyone else of his generation, changed rural America by putting motorized vehicles in the hands of farmers. Ford produced a tractor called a Fordson that was built on an assembly line in the same manner as the cars. By most counts, it was inferior to other tractors of the era, but it was cheap and gave people a choice of something other than animal power. It was a choice they couldn't resist in spite of the difficult transition to powered machinery. To compete, General Motors bought a company that made a tractor called a Sampson Model D Iron Horse that was operated with reins. The concept was brilliant as the four-wheel power unit had no seat and would obey the same commands that drivers had given horses and mules. The action of pulling on the right rein to go right, left rein to go left, back on both to stop and far back on both to back up. All the farmer's horse drawn equipment could be used with the tractor. The problem, according to today's collectors, was that it was complicated to adjust the belts and most folks had no inherent knowledge of machinery and lacked the ability to fix it. Like swapping out the mother board on your computer, eh? My father was 7, when grandpa bought the Model T, and his brothers were in their teens. They were fascinated by the car and learned to operate and work on it over the next five years. Grandpa came out one day when it was running and touched the spark plug which shocked him and it seemed to be the beginning of the end of his relationship with that car. He also had trouble keeping it on the road and in starting it in town. As a result, when he was offered cash money by a soldier back from the war in 1918, he sold it. He never drove a car again. His span of life as a driver went from 54 to 58 years old. He went back to driving a "hack" or "buggy" or riding in a car with his sons and daughters. For those who could drive it, the farm automobile soon turned into a truck as it was common to haul livestock in any vehicle that would accommodate them. Putting a real cargo bed on the back was almost a formality for enterprising folks. As commerce by motor vehicle became possible, farmers hauled eggs, cream and livestock to better markets. In the South, some "corn distillers" began to transport "white lightning" in souped up vehicles so they could outrun the "revenuers," hence the beginning of NASCAR. Imagine rural America without the automobile and its derivatives. The horse was a wonderful, loyal and dependable creature but a car was fast and a tractor didn't have to stop and rest. The pace of life accelerated and has never slowed since the first Model T came sailing down the road with the driver honking, while the laughing passengers waved at the farmsteads. The bold and adventurous saw it as a means of social mobility while the enterprising entrepreneur saw the car, truck and tractor as a means to increase productivity. Even the lazy saw it as a means to reduce work and expand their leisure hours. To me, grandpa's reaction to the Model T was very similar to mine about the personal computer. The Model T and the computer are complicated for the first generation of users. The Model T was undependable and it was confusing to have three pedals on the floor and no gear shift handle. It had no bumper, so an accident was damaging to vital parts. The computer is confusing (hit start to stop). It is undependable (data can be lost). Accidents of all kinds happen (the computer is prone to crashing) and yet, when the Model T worked, it was the most amazing invention devised by man. It magically took our ancestors to a new world of effortless transportation to see things that were beyond their reach before its invention. I would say the same today about the computer. But there are days I would like to abandon the computer, like grandpa did the Model T. Editor's Note: This is Ken Root's 34th year as an agricultural reporter. He grew up on a small farm in central Oklahoma and started his career as a vocational agriculture teacher. He worked in Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri as a broadcaster and was the original host of AgriTalk. He has also been the executive director of the National AgriChemical Retailers Association in Washington, D.C. and the National Association of Farm Broadcasters in Kansas City. Ken is now the lead farm broadcaster at WHO and WMT Radio based in Des Moines, Iowa. He has been a columnist for HPJ and Midwest Ag Journal for seven years. 7/28/08 Date: 7/24/08
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