An orange onslaught In a New England first, the Maine Antique Tractor Club hosts a Gathering of the Orange in Farmington this weekend

This is a love story. Like many boys born during or shortly after World War II, Bob Davids’ first job, at the age of 10, was working on a local dairy farm. In such situations, young men often found themselves becoming infatuated. Perhaps they were too young for the object of their infatuation to be the comely farmer’s daughter of risqu? story tradition. More likely it was with the farmer’s colorful tractor, which 50 years ago came in an assortment of bright colors. For young Davids, that color was Allis-Chalmers orange.

Davids’ father ran the hardware store in Stamford, a small town on the cusp of the Catskill Mountains in southeastern New York. Only a stone’s throw away are the towns of South Kort-right, Delhi (pronounced Del-hi) and Bovina Center, some of which are more bustling than others. This is the legendary Dutch country of Rip Van Winkle who slept for 40 years. When Davids was young, virtually every hill held a pasture, and in summer, those pastures sported their own herd of well-kept black-and-white cows.

Not only did every town have a general store, but many also had a feed mill or a machinery dealership. Stamford had both. When he was helping on the farm, young Davids hung around the Allis-Chalmers dealership. It was a great place to sit and just imagine. Imagine what it would feel like to drive one of those mechanized marvels and actually do stuff.

For most boys, that first circle around the field with the steering wheel in his hands, the farmer sitting on a fender to make certain things didn’t go too far awry, was the beginning of the flight to freedom. After all, if a fellow could pilot Old Betsy around a hayfield, could Dad’s car be far behind?

Bob Davids’ first driving experience was a lot less prosaic. It had to do with driving a tractor and manure spreader from inside a barn. There was a hard left turn to be made immediately after clearing the barn. “I turned too short and hooked the left axle end of the spreader on the door jamb and tore out that whole side of the opening,” he remembers.

Life got even better for young Davids one summer a few years later when friends of the family purchased an Allis-Chalmers Model B and Davids became its keeper. It was a little chore tractor with a four-cylinder 20-horsepower engine and a three-speed transmission. It might not have been much compared to today’s monsters with air-conditioned cabs, but it was just the thing to make a boy feel on top of the world as he plowed neighbors’ gardens.

The inevitable time comes when other sirens call. For Bob Davids it was the local branch of the State University in Delhi. There he studied civil technology, graduating in 1963. After graduation he worked around bigger machines than his beloved little Allis-Chalmers. He accepted a job with the Delaware & Hudson Railroad engineering department, starting out as a rod man. His job was to hold the folding rod for surveyors. With an attitude that he “would do anything they wanted me to do,” he was soon promoted to track maintenance supervisor first in Saratoga and then Plattsburgh, N.Y.

While he was with the D&H, he married wife Ellie in 1965, and they had two children, Bill and Elizabeth. With the railroad bankruptcies and consolidations of the 1970s came concerns that a career with the D&H would not provide the financial support Bob and Ellie needed for their growing family.

In 1978 Davids accepted a job with the Federal Railway Administration as a track safety inspector. He and Ellie moved to Newport. To say that the size of his territory was intimidating barely describes it. In those days the FRA assigned responsibility by railroads in an area instead of geography. Davids was assigned to cover from East Deerfield, Mass., to Madawaska and from Calais to Island Pond, Vt. For the uninitiated, that’s a lot of track and a lot of nights away from home.

On one of those trips, in 1981, he spotted an old Allis-Chalmers B at Hammond Tractor in Auburn. He just had to stop and look. It had been a long time coming, but the love affair was about to resume.

The tractor had a “stuck engine” which meant it wouldn’t run, which also meant that it could be bought on the cheap side. Shortly thereafter Bob rented a trailer and headed back to Auburn with an Irish setter named Sam Brown as a companion. He figures maybe the tractor wasn’t tied down to the trailer securely enough because all of the bouncing had freed up the engine by the time they got back to Newport. A passion was renewed.

Retired now from the FRA, Bob and Ellie live in St. Albans with 14 or 15 antique tractors in various states of restoration. Bob is particularly proud of the fact that he has four tractors that he purchased either from the original owners or their sons. In fact he has one that Ellie’s father bought new in 1957. He even has the original bill of sale for that one.

Few antique tractor owners like to hide them in the barn forever. That’s the purpose of organizations like the Maine Antique Tractor Club. You take your baby to meets and gatherings and show her off. It doesn’t make a difference whether your baby is showroom restored or still has on her “working clothes,” people gather and reminisce. Many of the tractors are still owned by the children or grandchildren of the people who first bought and used them.

Coincidentally, probably the largest such gathering ever held in the State of Maine is taking place this weekend at the Farmington Fairgrounds. The Maine Antique Tractor Club is hosting the Gathering of the Orange, which will draw literally thousands of people and 250 tractors, mostly orange. Although fans of Allis-Chalmers machinery have been holding the Gathering since 1988, it is the first time that it has been held in New England.

People and machinery come from all over for the Gathering of the Orange. There will be some from as far away as Florida and Nebraska. Three Canadian provinces will be represented. There is even a couple from England and a family from the Netherlands making the trip especially for the Gathering.

The Gathering of the Orange is open to the public. If you go, you will see antique tractors, not only on display, but actually working during several competitions and equipment demonstrations. You really don’t have to be a hard-core machinery freak to enjoy the Gathering. Besides just being able to gawk to your heart’s content, there are youth safety tractor-driving programs, a children’s area, vendors, crafters, concessions, a flea market and a swap meet. Admission is $5 for adults, $2 for children 11-17 and free for children 10 and under.

This is a family event. Mothers are encouraged to attend in order to keep a watchful eye on their children ages 7 to 70. There is bound to be a piece of shiny machinery that some aspiring Bob Davids will fall in love with. If the garage is full, a lot of the antiques are small enough to be reassembled in the family room.