When does a boy become a man? My earliest, most vivid memory of my stumbling steps toward becoming a man occurred when I was 9 years old.
Every summer, my father put up the wild hay in what we called the meadow; the ground was much too wet and rough to be called a field. But we needed the hay, so the work had to be done. In dry years, putting up the meadow hay wasn’t too bad. The horses could pull the mower without much trouble. But in wet years, they could step into soft spots and break legs. If horses couldn’t cut the hay, then people had to do it.
As a child, cutting the meadow was an exciting time because I could sit on the side and…
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Good Old Days (Digital) - 1 Issue, October 2023