How a B.C. father and son helped a lonely-looking old tractor find a new way to be useful

VICTORIA, B.C. — After working for decades on a rural property, the lawn-tractor never expected to end up parked on a boulevard near the city.

“It’s a Case 117 tractor,” Adam Roland says, and points to the logo on the tractor’s rusty body that inspired its name. “It’s Casey.”

Although his previous owner called him past his prime, Casey couldn’t wait to show his new owner that he could mow like a tractor half his age.

“It was barely hanging on there,” Adam recalls of putting Casey to work for the first time. “I started cutting the grass and it died about halfway into the boulevard.”

Adam pulled out his tools and did all he could to fix Casey.

“I started taking it apart,” Adam says. “And it didn’t go back together again.”

So, Casey just sat, watching the years go by looking lonely and useless, until he started hearing kids like Adam’s son Ivor playing in their yards.

And like the hum of mowing lawns herald the start of spring, to Casey, laughing children sounded like new possibilities.

“Weeeee!” Ivor flies down the slide attached to his playhouse before proclaiming it felt “good!”

Of course, the five-year-old will tell you slides and swings are “good.” But when they happen up on a tractor beside the sidewalk, that’s even better than great.

“It’s so cool,” Ivor smiles after pulling the tractor’s levers and opening its compartments with a delighted squeal.

What’s even cooler that cool is that there’s a sign posted on the fence beside the tractor. It says, “Hello. My name is Casey. Let’s go for a ride.”

Ivor — like countless other kids in the neighbourhood — always accepts the invitation.

“I’ll start the motor,” Ivor smiles, after climbing up on to the tractor’s seat and grabbing the steering wheel in both hands.

If you ask Adam if the tractor still works, he’ll tell you, “It works if you believe it works.”

That’s why Adam regularly changes the sign beside Casey, to inspire the imagination of passersby.

“Other signs said, ‘Don’t go over 100 (km/h). Casey’s getting old,” Adam smiles. “Or ‘Please bring Casey back with a full tank of gas.’”

The signs are also there to let parents know it’s okay to take Casey on an adventure.

And if you believe a rusty old tractor can transform into a rocket ship, race car, or — when Ivor climbs on top of it and stretches out his hands like a balancing surfer — a super-charged surf board that can catch the world’s biggest waves before he leaps off the front of it and twirls in the air and wipes out in the surf, Casey will make that work.

“You name it,” Adam smiles, “it fits the bill.”

Casey also shows us that just because you must stop doing something you love, it doesn’t mean you can’t start doing another thing that turns out to be even better.

“Maybe it doesn’t do what it was designed to do originally,” Adam says as Ivor climbs all over the tractor. “But it’s got a great new life now.”