Jim Johnsonand His 1993 Coatesville Classic.
Art Evans will tell anyone and everyone that one of the initial principles upon which he founded Dixie Chopper was “to build a lawn mower that wouldn’t break when you used it.”
And while that is indeed still true today, nearly 30 years later, it can also be said that Dixie Chopper builds a lawn mower that won’t break -- even when you abuse it!
Fire? That might frighten scarecrows. Water? Only Noah knows better. Pestilence? You can’t let that bug you.
Jim Johnson knows. His 1993 Dixie Chopper Coatesville Classic has survived repeated near-disasters. It didn’t just take a licking and keep on ticking, it still mows grass like the day it came off the line at Coatesville.
Johnson is at least the fourth owner of the 14-year-old mower. In fact, two of the previous owners are his neighbors in Fletcher, Ohio.
“Neighbor No. 1 is a heavy equipment contractor and was hired to tear down a garage that had caught fire and burned,” Johnson explained. “While he was razing the garage, he saw a Dixie Chopper that had been damaged by the fire.”
Jim Johnsonand His 1993 Coatesville Classic.
Deciding that it might be salvageable, he pulled the mower from the rubble and took it back to his shop. By simply replacing the damaged parts, he got the Chopper up and running in no time.
“After mowing with it, he realized that he needed a Dixie with a wider cut, so he went out and purchased one, and then sold the old mower to neighbor No. 2,” Johnson said.
The second neighbor then mowed with the Dixie until his wife decided she wanted to do the mowing (who could argue with such a scenario?) albeit it a bit more slowly. She preferred an old dinosaur lawn tractor with a steering wheel and, of course, got her way.
Which left the Dixie on the sale block again, and Johnson eagerly snapped it up.
“Needless to say,” he added, “Neighbor No. 2’s tractor-type mower broke down from time to time. And in the name of neighborly love, I would sneak over when they were at work and mow for them if I saw grass in need of attention. Nothing said, although it’s kind of a nice way to antagonize also.”
Occasionally Johnson would find a bottle of wine on his porch in appreciation. But at least once he could have used a bottle of calamine lotion instead.
“The second year I had the mower I was mowing along the edge of my pond when I brushed up against a pine tree that must have housed a bees’ nest,” he said, recalling the sting of those bees.
Johnson was quickly stung on his upper lip, neck and chin. And being “somewhat distracted” by the stinging discomfort and horde of bees, he let the mower take a sharp right turn and go slowly into the pond.
When the Coatesville Classic stopped its forward progress, only Johnson’s upper torso and the top of the seat were visible above the water.
After hustling to his garage to get a truck to pull the mired mower from the pond, Johnson let the Dixie sit on the bank a few days to dry out.
“I finally decided that I would take my tools down and see if I could do anything to get it going,” Johnson continued. “I took the bowl off the bottom of the carburetor, drained the water and put it back on. I took the plugs out, and using the key, turned the motor over, blowing water like a surfacing whale out of the exhaust and plug holes.
“I wasn’t very hopeful, to say the least,” he admitted. “But I put the plugs back in and decided to see if she would fire. ‘Poot-poot-poot’ -- the sound a Dixie makes when it’s trying to start with a little water in its system -- is what I heard.”
But Johnson and his Dixie Chopper were persistent.
“Yep, I got it started,” he said. “Took about 15 minutes. I drove it to the garage and proceeded with a little CPR, replacing fluids and taking care of all the things that needed dried and cleaned.”
Johnson and his mower prevailed and remain inseparable. He gets it serviced these days at Cut Rite Equipment in Sidney, Ohio.
“It’s been through a fire, drowned and even cast off for a tractor-type mower,” he says. “That’s my Dixie Chopper story. Hope you enjoyed it, and it’s all true!”
Now that’s a mower that won’t break when you abuse it!
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