Forces Driving More
stacked high with hay, the hay’s weight compressing their suspensions,
flattening the leaf springs, and threatening to blow out the rear tires
without warning.
The driver of the lead truck stopped just inside the gate, stepped
outside his vehicle and walked toward my father. He remarked that
he had been out of town all day, but when he returned, he’d heard
something about a little excitement at our place. It so happened, he
told my father, that he had more hay than he knew what to do with.
Maybe my father could take it off his hands.
In our community, most farms were now part-time operations,
putting up just enough hay in the summer to feed livestock and horses
the following winter and spring. My father knew this farmer; having
too much hay on hand was more pretense than fact. So he responded
by saying that there was indeed a small fire, but the excitement was
just an attempt to entertain the neighbors. He appreciated the offer
but assured the man that no hay was needed.
While he was talking, the second farmer had gotten out of his truck
and joined the conversation. Looking around at the mud, the charred
structures, and the ghost of a haystack, he remarked that it appeared
to have been more than just a little excitement. He repeated the same
line of having extra hay and asked my father where they should stack
it. Faced with too much evidence to refute, my father changed his
approach and offered to buy both loads. He barely got the words
out of his mouth before both interrupted; they had not come here to
sell hay—and they were not leaving until both trucks were unloaded.
Then, as if to tamp down any further resistance, one added that all this
standing around and talking was only wasting good sunlight.
It was clear that my father was not going to get his way. So all of us
went to work unloading the hay until both trucks were empty and the
last bales were stacked. As we brushed the hay leaves off our clothes,
my father tried to thank them only to be cut off once again—no need
to say anything, they responded, he would have done the same for
them. The farmers’ unsentimental generosity was kind, but not ex-
traordinary. It was simply how people in our community responded to
each other in moments like this. While the fire would later become a
lasting lesson connecting energy and food, the evening’s events taught
me why social norms were so important to governance.