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Hard-working engines showcased at Old Time Days
  
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Jamie Larson
HUDSON — The Hudson Valley Old Time Power Association Inc. held their 33rd annual Old Time Days festival Saturday and Sunday. The event showcases hundreds of outdated but still powerful tractors and machines from a time when engines were built to work - and worked hard.
Association members say they’re addicted to their machines, the raw, hand-built, still sturdy engines that chugg away as they pull weight or run anything their dutiful owners can hook the Tractor engine belt to.
The Old Time Days festival is the largest event held on the Power Association’s grounds on Finger Road, near the intersection of routes 9 and 23. Though the rolling field seemed packed with rows upon rows of restored antique equipment, demonstrations, a museum, and an antique tractor-pull, Association President Frank Pflegl says the event is shrinking as the years go by.
Pflegl said the decline has a lot to do with the same passage of time that makes their devices so special. While the group was founded around a love of maintaining the efficient old engines there just isn’t the same interest among young people anymore. The group is also slowly losing the living history of the machines as the older group members pass away, taking their experience with them.
“Unfortunately we’re losing older members,” Pflegl said, adding that the average member’s age is probably over 70. “We have members who built and worked these things.”
Most of the members are, or were, farmers, mechanics and gear-heads who have been working on tractors or engines from a very young age. Pflegl said maintaining the equipment is an ‘addiction’ that some people don’t understand. “Some of the things we spend money on you wouldn’t believe,” Pfligl said with a smile as he inspected a large wood shingle mill, “most people just wouldn’t understand. Now with the economy the way it is a lot of the older stuff has rusted up or been sold for scrap.”
Stan Voorhees was one of the original founders of the association 36 years ago, and he reiterated Pfiegl’s sentiment about their shrinking past-time. “Some years ago this field was full, but all those old timers are dying off,” Voorhees said. “This is just something we’ve always done. We’ve got an engine here my grandfather bought new in 1917.”
While Association members may feel a little weary that the machines they love may someday be forgotten, as Voorhees spoke a young boy behind him could barely contain his excitement. Voorhees maintains a collection of antique John Deere tractors, the oldest nearly 100-years-old. The boy wore the iconic John Deere green and yellow hat and T-Shirt, pulling his parents along from machine to machine, inspecting Voorhees’s collection intently.
Voorhees saw the child and acknowledged that there are kids who still like tractors, like his four-year-old grandson, and agreed that there is something inherently enjoyable about heavy, hard-working engines that still resonates with people of all ages.
To reach reporter Jamie Larson call 518-828-1616, ext. 2269, or e-mail jlarson@registerstar.com.
HUDSON — The Hudson Valley Old Time Power Association Inc. held their 33rd annual Old Time Days festival Saturday and Sunday. The event showcases hundreds of outdated but still powerful tractors and machines from a time when engines were built to work - and worked hard.
Association members say they’re addicted to their machines, the raw, hand-built, still sturdy engines that chugg away as they pull weight or run anything their dutiful owners can hook the Tractor engine belt to.
The Old Time Days festival is the largest event held on the Power Association’s grounds on Finger Road, near the intersection of routes 9 and 23. Though the rolling field seemed packed with rows upon rows of restored antique equipment, demonstrations, a museum, and an antique tractor-pull, Association President Frank Pflegl says the event is shrinking as the years go by.
Pflegl said the decline has a lot to do with the same passage of time that makes their devices so special. While the group was founded around a love of maintaining the efficient old engines there just isn’t the same interest among young people anymore. The group is also slowly losing the living history of the machines as the older group members pass away, taking their experience with them.
“Unfortunately we’re losing older members,” Pflegl said, adding that the average member’s age is probably over 70. “We have members who built and worked these things.”
Most of the members are, or were, farmers, mechanics and gear-heads who have been working on tractors or engines from a very young age. Pflegl said maintaining the equipment is an ‘addiction’ that some people don’t understand. “Some of the things we spend money on you wouldn’t believe,” Pfligl said with a smile as he inspected a large wood shingle mill, “most people just wouldn’t understand. Now with the economy the way it is a lot of the older stuff has rusted up or been sold for scrap.”
Stan Voorhees was one of the original founders of the association 36 years ago, and he reiterated Pfiegl’s sentiment about their shrinking past-time. “Some years ago this field was full, but all those old timers are dying off,” Voorhees said. “This is just something we’ve always done. We’ve got an engine here my grandfather bought new in 1917.”
While Association members may feel a little weary that the machines they love may someday be forgotten, as Voorhees spoke a young boy behind him could barely contain his excitement. Voorhees maintains a collection of antique John Deere tractors, the oldest nearly 100-years-old. The boy wore the iconic John Deere green and yellow hat and T-Shirt, pulling his parents along from machine to machine, inspecting Voorhees’s collection intently.
Voorhees saw the child and acknowledged that there are kids who still like tractors, like his four-year-old grandson, and agreed that there is something inherently enjoyable about heavy, hard-working engines that still resonates with people of all ages.
To reach reporter Jamie Larson call 518-828-1616, ext. 2269, or e-mail jlarson@registerstar.com.
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