There’s no better grammatical way to say this: it’s hot!

During my wife’s grandfather’s later years, he used to begin many stories with “I remember when I was a kid…”.  Well, I’m gonna borrow that family favorite line to say I remember when I was a kid, it was hot during the summer. In fact, the old timers used to have a word for it — July. 

As a youngster in the ’60s and ’70s, our local town had a travelling youth baseball team in the Jefferson County League. Travelling in the sense that all nine towns only had one team, and we traveled to all the others in the county to play. Oftentimes a few towns near the county lines were involved as well, depending on their level of available players. 

Away games were the best, because eight or nine of us would ride in the back of our pickup truck, with my mom as the designated driver (she was the only one with a driver’s license). The 55-mph hot breeze as we traversed state highways and even gravel road short cuts did not matter as we were having the time of our lives. We practiced and played in blue jeans because there was no money for full uniforms. We didn’t know the difference, and we liked it! And yes, it was hot.

Growing up on a farm, my dad put up our small square baled hay as well as many of the neighbors. We lived in an area where very few utilized bale loaders, and many of the fields were either too small or irregular shaped to pull a wagon behind the baler, and so bales were dropped on the ground.

I learned to drive on a John Deere A at age 7. Dad would line it up between the row of bales, and all I had to do was not hit any. He would hop on at the end of the row and steer to the next one until I could navigate the turns solo. As I grew bigger, he would often tell a customer, “Chuck ain’t doin’ anything, he can help.” 

I began by stacking on the wagon and in the barns at about age 10. The downside to my continued physical growth meant that as I matured, I became the one loading the wagons and pickups. And, yes, it was hot.

Most of our hayfields weren’t too far from the barn. I’m not sure we even owned a water jug. But there was a hydrant nearby to rinse off the dust and fine leaves. Dad always said just run some water on your wrists and you’ll cool off. Mom always made sure there was a tin can with a protective lining available for drinking. I think it was periodically replaced as the rust prevailed, but it sure looked like the same old can year after year.

Picking up hay was hard but honest work. I was thrilled with the invention of the eight-bale accumulator and pickup attachment for the front-end loader, which of course was mounted on a non-cabbed tractor. Unloading and stacking in the open-ended barn was much easier, but bales still needed to be tightened and straightened, and that ever-present tin roof was still overhead. And yes, it was hot.

Big round balers, cab tractors with working air conditioning, bale hauling trailers, bale beds and self-propelled equipment have sure improved the working conditions and quality of life for many farmers and ranchers. But I’m glad to have had the experiences of manual labor back when we didn’t know any different or any better. And we didn’t have the luxury of a 10-day forecast at our fingertips. All we knew was ­— it was hot.