If International Harvester made it, Jeff Ismail knows about it. From printed manuals to Scouts and Travelalls, Jeff has his finger on it. A self-made man, Jeff understands that happy is a choice, join us for a conversation on episode 237. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
3:29 – my friends were playing and swimming, but not me and my brothers, we were with Dad – raking leaves and edging lawns, doing what we had to do to earn a living
8:50 –some grew up in Ford, some Chevy, some Dodge – we grew up in IHs
17:17– You don’t forget people who race in Scouts; we won a couple of seasons, and it was always by attrition. It looked like the Turtle and the Hare
28:28 – my dad came to me and said, I want to take you back to the home country to get married; I’m like, I’m not ready to get married!
36:36 – my dad goes, “why don’t you just fix up that pole barn out there and start working on Internationals again?” If I got Dad’s blessing, why not?
43:27 – we’ve always had this thing, “If the job makes sense, we’ll take it!”
49:38 – people don’t know me, but they know my truck.
57:23 – Some people are like, Oh, I can’t wait for the future. I know good times, I’m living in good times.
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:39.520] – Big Rich Klein
My next guest is a guy who never got over playing with tractors. In fact, he has made a life and business out of corn binders. Jeff Ismail, how are you doing this morning?
[00:01:51.270] – Jeff Ismail
I’m doing awesome. Rich, how about you?
[00:01:53.420] – Big Rich Klein
Doing fantastic. So we got a lot to talk about. You know your love of tractors and how that all started. You just got back from UA, the new UA. So we’ll talk about that as well, if we can.
[00:02:10.530] – Jeff Ismail
Yeah, absolutely. It was a blast.
[00:02:12.610] – Big Rich Klein
Cool. So let’s start at the very beginning. Where were you born and raised?
[00:02:18.520] – Jeff Ismail
I was actually born in Southern California, in North Ridge, and lived there till I was 13. My dad was a gardener and landscaper, and smog was just killing him. I mean, it was just bad. I remember as a kid playing down there, at the end of the day, you’d try to breathe, and you’d be like, you’d be all up tight in the chest. So anyways, when I was 13, he moved us up here to Loomis. I’m the youngest of five. So my one older brother and sister moved up with us. My two oldest brothers had already moved out before then and stayed in SoCal. But we moved up here to They’re still in the same house in Loomis. And from 13 on, Northern California was my new home. And and I love it up here.
[00:03:09.280] – Big Rich Klein
Right. And so your dad was a landscaper and gardener and moved you guys up to Loomis. The smog was too heavy. Was that about late ’60s, mid ’70s? No, that was actually…
[00:03:25.830] – Jeff Ismail
So we moved up here in ’88.
[00:03:27.520] – Big Rich Klein
Oh, in ’88. Okay.
[00:03:29.180] – Jeff Ismail
Yeah. I started It’s my first year in high school here in Del Oro. My one brother above me, he started as a senior. He’s three years older than me. And so he finished out high school there. But yeah, I graduated Del Oro. When we moved up here, my dad He still did some landscape jobs and stuff, but he opened up a nursery there on Sierra College, and him and my mom still dabbling plants to this day. The nursery is officially closed, but they’ll still They’ll never stop being green thumbs and growing plants and stuff. So people still stop by and we’ll do that. But yeah, growing up, my summers were especially in Southern Cal. I remember all my friends playing and swimming, but not me and my brothers. We were with dad. We were raking leaves and edging lawns and mowing lawns and doing what we had to do to earn a living. But it taught us you had to work hard for what you want. You can’t just sit around. There is fun. My dad would take us. He’s an avid hunter. Every weekend, if he wasn’t on a hunting trip or taking us hunting with him, he was fishing.
[00:04:42.450] – Jeff Ismail
We did a lot of fishing down there like on a rock dam and on the Castake Lake. So as a kid, we did definitely a lot of outdoor stuff. I was always with him like that. You got to a point where finally I looked at my mom and said, Okay, I want to go with dad on this trip. I used to follow him for miles and miles. My dad would just put in the miles. He was always the one that came home with the game. But he put in the effort. And like I said, I just remember as a kid just chasing him for miles over the Santa Barbara Mountains and all that. And then eventually, I was a teenager when we moved up here. But once we moved up here, and as I got older, I definitely started hunting a little bit less. But I still remember walking the forest up here with them, trying to find a deer, quail, or grouse, or something. Always good times, though. READ MORE
