The Hay Ride

Old-time hay ride when the oxen pulled the cart.

       The hay ride was hot, dusty, and slow; the hayseed got down your neck, the wagon jolted the fillings out of your teeth, and you couldn't get very far out of town, for a yoke of oxen, at high speed, traveled less than five miles an hour. It wasn't horse sense for the women to wear corsets and the men to wear coats, but you suffered because it was the mode of the time. Then, when you got to your destination, the bank of a creek or a shady dell, you found that the watermelon was warm and someone had put his foot into the lunch basket and the sandwiches were full of ants. 

      But it was a hay ride, and you had fun in a desperate sort of way. Coming home in the cool of the evening you could hold hands and cuddle a little when the chaperon wasn't looking. The cost to each gentleman was not more than twenty-five cents. It was cheap entertaining and courting and it got you out of town to faraway places. 

      You look back on those hay rides with a sentimental nostalgia, yet you know, right down deep, they were pretty poor excuses for a good time.

• Return to The Good Old Days

Modern family hay ride in Ohio. The tractor pulls the cart. Photo by Scott Bauer