Hay Haulin'

Aunt B reminded me of "hay hauling" today.

If a body ain't never ventured into that pertickular economic scheme before....don't.

When the ranch hand was near bout 14 year old, the onliest jobs in Wright City and thereabouts was taken by the family men. Ignorant piss ants like me had to scrabble like a tall dawg to pick up a "big nickel" (what Dad called a 50 cent piece).

Only thing available in the summer was hay haulin'.

Hay haulin' must be the fav-rite invention of the devil as it is a misery of heat, humidity, GRASS BURRS, dust, and just plain "whip yur butt" work.

Being an astute entremanure of finance, your humble scribe's first hay haulin' was with some genuine backwoods retard toothless folks who declared they was givin' ONE PENNY per bale to move said hay from the field and stack it in the barn. Don't mean a cent per person. Me, Jay, and Allen had to "share" the profit at 1/3 cent per bale.

Seeing how we weren't no math geniuses, took us bout 1,000 bales to figger out we wuz on a path to an early grave with no dinero along the way?

Fact is, the most I ever remember was a quarter per bale in the late 70's? Ole pancho would motor by to visit Dad when returning from Tyler to his East TX duty station and find mi padre working alone in a hay field trying to financially "survive". Being a good son (or a 24 carat dumass) yours truly would pull off the "uniform", pull on a pair of Dad's overalls, and "throw" hay bales til dark trying to help him survive.

Cramps???? Ya don't know what muscle cramps are until you dehydrate in a hay field and knot up so bad you can't breath?

Dust??? If ya put a bandana over your mouth as a "filter", it's surface will quickly turn to mud?

Exhaustion???? Forget it, don't have the words to describe it???

I reckon folks that have hauled hay in their early years have a special bond cause we know how we suffered for so little to simply try to survive?

And we did.