Merle Jr. pulled our dump rake with his Chevy pickup truck
And he sure can’t be accused of going slow.
Twenty miles per hour on a steel-wheeled dump rakes fast
And since I did it, I’m the guy to know.
I don’t remember why he came up on the hill that day
I think we might have had a tractor down,
Or he might’ve had his Allis Chalmers baler on the hill,
The one that made the bales completely round.
I think I must have been about the age of eight or nine
And I know that I had rode the rake before,
But I never had to work so hard to keep from falling off
As Merle Jr seemed to gas that truck the more.
The rake tines would come up and hit the seat and bang my butt
As Merle Jr. seemed to speed it up each pass,
And if I missed a "trip", he’d look back at me and grin
And then I think I heard a devilish laugh.
I never did fall off that rake but sometimes it was close
And we got that hayfield raked in record time.
And though it’s 60 years or so since that one summer day
I still remember all of it just fine.
The clanging rake, the hay seed dust, the clouds behind the hill
And all about a looming threat of rain,
And if I had the chance I’d probably spend my only dime
To go back there and do it all again.
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