Roy Exum
Oh my goodness, July has just arrived and during my formative years, it was the most hated month of the year. When I was 12 years old, my wonderful grandfather decreed the days of begging for money to go to the picture show and burgers at the Krystal were over, that I was on the payroll for a dollar an hour and, in our family, folks worked for what they spent.
Now my grandfather, Roy McDonald, had a lot of enterprises. One Christmas I unloaded enough sow bellies at the J.H.
Allison meat packing plant to nearly die from the worst case of mononucleosis in history. I drove trucks to get supplies, knocked down walls with jack hammers, poured yards of concrete, and learned real quick that anything electrical meant the same color wire had to match or you’d get a jolt to your memory, so to speak.
Every Saturday, many Sunday afternoons after church, and every day in the summer I worked. And, as an inquisitive kid who yearned to know how everything worked, I loved every minute of it. My Dad, who was the Associate Editor at the News-Free Press for years, regularly left the house about 5 a.m. and any day there wasn’t school I was expected to be in the car.
As I said, I’d do everything and anything all the way until the end of high school. Most of the time – summer and winter -- I worked in every area of construction turning the old Davenport Hosiery Mill into what is today the Times Free Press building, and learned more lifetime skills, from measuring concrete by the cubic yard or mitering a door frame, than you could ever believe. But the very worst came every July.
I would be working for the genius carpenter and my great mentor, Carl Tallent, when the construction boss would tell me during lunch, “Mr. Roy wants you in Sale Creek tomorrow.” Oh, lordy, I knew what that meant and I’d rather be whipped with a fresh carp.
Many people have enjoyed a lot of happy hours on our 2,000-acre farm seven miles this side of Dayton and, to me, it is evermore hallowed land. But in July came the “first cut” of our huge hay harvest so when my dad would get to the newspaper at 5:30 a.m., I’d high-tail it to the old Chili King on Market and eat the biggest breakfast I could hold.
Just before 6 a.m., Elmer and Belle, a black couple who were dearly beloved second parents to me, would pick me up in front of the newspaper and we would get to Sale Creek a little before 7. I would get them to let me off at “the tool shed,” which was actually a huge building where all of our tractors spent the night, and my key fit a Ford 4000 tractor that already had a sickle blade attached.
I’d darn near freeze to death in my T-shirt and shorts, driving to “the field of the day,” in the early-morning chill, and then I would make my first cut in the field counter clockwise, every other one clockwise. How you cut hay depends on the blade. You can only go as fast as the cut is clean. Too fast and you have to go back, which means you’ll miss dinner. You’d watch for rocks, which will foul your sickle, and pray the cut was good and even.
Around 10 a.m. I would finish, shift the tractor into high with the throttle full, and go back to the tool shed, unhitch the mower, and attach a hay rake. The deal was you’d work the field you mowed a day or two earlier, provided the cut hay had cured. Racking isn’t glamorous, with itching dust combined with the rising heat and the waves of hot air coming back from the tractor engine. Again, you can’t go faster than the rake or it has to be done again, perish the thought.
The trick to tractoring, be it plowing, raking, drilling seed or whatever, is that once you make your turn at the end of the field, you align with what you just plowed or raked, and then seek a landmark, or “tell tale,” on the other side of the field that was right in the middle of the nose of the tractor. You aimed for that spot, looking forward and never back, and your rows would be straight and true. Too many people look back, and their rows are crooked as a dog’s hind leg. The same applies to life, as I would later discover.
Once done, I would race my steed to the creek where five or six other tractors were already parked under the shade. Around 6 a.m. earlier in the day, a designed field hand would have nestled a crate of fresh, ripe tomatoes in the cool creek water. The first man in from raking would go to the Rocky Side café and buy as many quarts of milk as there were men working, along with two or three loaves of white Bunny bread and a large jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise.
After you washed off your dust and sweat in the creek, wading out in the cool water, we’d sit on a fallen tree or on the bank and here’s how “dinner” would work. (“Supper” is what old-timers called the night meal.)
You’d slather the bottom piece of bread pretty thick with Hellman’s and then carefully drape slices of cool sliced tomato, making sure all four corners of the bread were covered, about half to one inch thick. You might sprinkle light salt but there was a big shaker of coarse ground pepper -- the rule was to turn the top slices of tomato black with pepper, and – brother – manna from heaven can’t compare.
You would sit there, juice running down your arms, your legs, your shirt and points in between. Mayonnaise would literally drip off your chin, the tighter you tried to hold the slippery sandwich,and the only thing in life that tastes better – believe you me -- is the next sandwich.
Just before you’d founder, you would wash again in the creek and then sit placidly in the shade, some smoking and other guys nodding off to sleep. Right at 1 o’clock everybody would mount their tractors and drive in a line back to the tool shed.
Once there, you’d gas your tractor for the next day, changing back to the mower to be ready to go right at 7, and then you’d grease the fittings and replace any teeth in the sickle that had been nicked by the rocks. You’d grab the other clothes you brought and change into blue jeans, a long-sleeved shirt buttoned at the neck, and force your jeans inside your boots. Yes, the heat was awful but hay dust will eat you alive.
We’d soak a bandana that you’d tie around your neck, ignoring that it would wet your shirt, put on a wide-brimmed cowboy hat and have at it. We’d stand at the pumps, catching the next hay wagon to the fields. Pulling on gloves still clammy with sweat from the day before, then would begin the longest afternoons I can ever remember.
We’d have a couple of bailers working and our job was to hurry alongside the truck, pitching the bales to the “catcher.” The rule was six rows and a cap – seven if it looked like rain -- so about the fourth row it would take two of us to “pitch” a bale high enough. We’d then rope the load, as tightly as we could, and head for the lofts.
You can’t imagine how hot a hay field can be until you’ve worked one. It seemed like you’d go forever until one of the older men would holler “water” and the operation would stop. We’d all gather at the passenger door where on the floorboard of the ever-dusty truck would be a sweating gallon jug of water.
Every afternoon, the men would fill plastic milk jugs with water and then place them in the freezer overnight. By morning there would be a brick of ice inside the jug. Then they’d screw off the top and put them on the floor of the trucks, the heat melting the ice just so. By 2 o’clock there would be a smaller chunk of ice inside with the coldest water you can ever imagine, despite the fact you could have baked biscuits inside that truck cab.
The trouble was, hayfield etiquette was oldest to youngest. Shorty and Jubaby always took the first pulls, and nobody ever complained that they chewed tobacco constantly. Then would come Cecil and Hoyal, the Shipley boys and Red, and the guys who were handling the bailers, plus a couple of great black guys who would hire on as extras.
I was always last and the fact the tobacco chewers, black guys and some who looked kinda sickly had already sucked the jug meant nothing to me. I’d have died for just a trickle and, while etiquette called on each man to wipe the jug only once with his sweaty shirt sleeve, I’d almost fall on the ground trying to stick my tongue out long enough just to lick the ice, so help me.
Once we gathered a load and headed to one of the barns, the water fountain was my salvation, but in the barn lofts was the worst heat. We’d place these huge fans around the doors, but it’s true: blowing 95-degree air sends 95-degree air to wherever its going. Yes, we had electric conveyors that would carry the bales to the lofts, but you had to hand carry each bale to the back of the huge lofts and stack it high.
The fires of hell can’t possibly be hotter than a loft of a barn in July. Sweat would drip off your chin, but, once done, you’d never tarry. Drink your fill from the water fountain or a nearby hose, refill the water jugs so the remaining ice could chill it, and hurry back to the field for another load.
If rain was in the forecast, I can remember more than once coming in by the truck’s headlights. We’d usually settle the last load around dusk, then stumble to the Big House shedding clothes until we hit the swimming pool naked. Did I care? Please, I could have cared less if people had gathered to point. That pool water, with the sun on the wane, was as close as I’ve come thus far to eternal salvation.
My grandmother would have set a plate out for us, covered in wax paper, but after about three gulps of supper the cool sheets of the bed were a better idea. Lord, it seemed like no time until 6:00 the next morning. A quick shower, a fistful of corn bread from the night before with cold milk and maybe a piece of cold chicken from the refrigerator, and you were hurrying towards the tool shed.
I’d buy two Cokes, one for the moment and the other for the tractor’s tool box, and, just before 7 a.m., that Ford 4000 and me would be headed towards a new field to cut, once again shivering in the chill.
It never lasted more than a week, that first cut, but it seemed like a month. Every year when I’d get back home mother thought I needed to see a doctor … I slept every minute I could for nearly two weeks … but the lessons learned in that hay field have stuck with me all my life. You can’t cut faster than the sickle, you can’t outrace the rake, and a ‘mater sandwich with coarse black pepper is the most under-rated delicacy in the world.
When on a tractor, match your speed with the machine’s RPMs and your cut will always be even. For straight, clean rows, focus forward, never behind. In the field, you pick up a bale with your back to the truck so your partner will have an easier time pitching from the front. Always be the last man to leave the field and, here is a real truth, the sun will test you every day of your life until you prove to yourself you are tougher than it is, then it will always be just another “thing.”
Being “family” you had to earn respect from the men you worked with. That meant always grabbing the dirty end of the log, the heavy end of the load. You said “yessir” to everybody and, if another crew’s load toppled leaving the field, you better be the first there to help load the truck again. I soaked up everything I could and, because I listened, my rows were straight and true. Avoid any bumps or ruts driving a load of hay – the same as in life -- and double-clutch, always double-clutch, so the load would never jerk.
The hayfield in July is one of life’s grandest classrooms and, thanks be to God, I graduated long ago. I wouldn’t trade anything for the experience, but how I wish so many of today’s generation could enroll in such a course featuring the best teachers alive. Like thousands of other men who have worked a hay field in July, I believe farming is one of the most wonderful avocations of them all and the wisdom to be had, in a daily dose if you’ll seek it, is incomparable.
My friend, this is what I believe to be true.
Royexum@aol.com