by Jonathan Roberts, Coordinator
The Winona area is blessed with beautiful country drives through rolling hills, bluffs, and valleys sharply cut by trout streams. Drive a few miles out of town and seas of corn and soybeans float on by, dotted with farm houses and big red barns. Out for a scenic drive on a glowing Saturday afternoon, as the van is winding through the fields outside of Witoka, Steve Laska has his eyes glued to the horizon. Dust billows behind a combine about a mile off in the distance and Steve excitedly chirps, “That’s a Case, a Case tractor, like Richard’s old case. It goes ‘pop, pop.’” As the van rounds the bend and passes the hazy plume, sure enough, a red Case tractor is pulling a combine. “I like that Case,” Steve concluded.
If you don’t know a Case from a Farmall, or a Deutz from an International, don’t worry, Steve would love to tell you about them. Steve grew up in the farming community with his parents, Doris and Ben, and his younger siblings, Jane and Richard. Growing up, Richard, or Rich as Steve often calls him, remembers riding along with their dad out to get some work done, one brother sitting on each fender of the tractor. When not helping with chores and keeping the farm running, Steve had a handful of toy tractors that he’d often play with, including a couple of pedal tractors that he’d ride around. Rich, nine years younger than Steve, guesses that he probably got his first one around the time Rich was born. “As far as I can remember, there’s always been one around. He probably got his first one when he was around eight or ten years old.”
I first met Steve in 2012 when he was living with his mother, Doris, on Pleasant Ridge Road, with Rich and his wife, Carol, living on a neighboring property just a short drive down the road. One of the first things he did when I met him was show me the pedal tractor collection in the shed that he had grown over the years. “That’s a Case, the old Ford, the Farmall…” and on he went pointing out each tractor in his collection which numbered over twenty. I asked Rich when Steve really started his collection and he said, “He had two for a long time, Dad didn’t really like him to have too many, but then when he passed away, well…Mom made up for it.” I asked Rich, “The flood gates opened?” He came back with a chuckle, “Yeah, that’s about right. Almost one a year after that.”
Steve’s tractor collection was pared down when he moved off of the farm and into one of HCO’s residential homes in 2018. He brought a few of his favorites along, including one with a snow plow attachment, that his brother-in-law, Dale, Jane’s husband, had rigged up for him. Anytime there is a bit of snow on the ground, Steve can be found outside plowing the driveway at his home, whether before he heads off to work at the DAC or in the afternoon when he gets home. He is known for being a hard worker, helping with chores when growing up on the farm, helping Doris with housework, and even mowing the lawn. Rich remembers, “He used to mow most of the lawn area for years. When we had the old Snapper mower, he’d zip around on that, did a really good job, and we never had to worry about him.”
Many young children go through a “heavy machinery” phase, stopping at construction sites to watch the backhoe dig, singing along to ambulance sirens, and mimicking a race car’s squealing tires and rumbling engine around a sharp turn. Some simply never grow out of it. For some folk, whether seven or seventy, the roar of a scraping snowplow, the hard crank of an old pickup truck, or the semi-sweet smell of rubber tires stirs something in their soul. For Steve, it’s the “pop, pop” of a diesel tractor, be it Case red, John Deere green, or Ford blue.
