Episode #189: "Jimmy and the Haymakers"

Neighbors that hay together, stay together. Got the baler stuck, had to chain up every available tractor to get it out.

Howdy folks:

Welcome to Michael Perry’s Voice Mail, episode 189. This one’s available to free and paid subscribers alike. Click the player above to listen.

In today’s episode the death of a childhood friend sent me back to the days of bikes with “sissy bars” and banana seats, and how the last time we saw each other it was for a funeral, but most of all how his memory is tied to the days when we neighbors would all hay together, sharing equipment and time, and—as the photo above shows—relying on each other to get unstuck.

I also mention how some folks didn’t care for what I wrote about haying and why I’m glad I did.

---

The Jimmy excerpt at the beginning of today’s episode is from the essay “Catching At the Hems of Ghosts,” in the book Off Main Street, available in signed paperback and eBook here. Also at Amazon and BookShop.org.

The haying excerpt is from Coop. Signed paperbacks available here (as well as links to audio and ebook versions). Also at Amazon and BookShop.org.

---

Today’s marginalia—down below these photos—is from Mistress to an Age, the 1958 biography of a woman whose name I don’t know how to pronounce.

Stacking the wagon with my brothers. I’m partially obscured, going for “seven high.”

Sisters and brothers unloading.

Told ya I grew up on the wooden end of a pitchfork.

We probably weren’t much help at this point.

Sister making sure every stem of hay hits the mow.

THIS WEEK’S MARGINALIA

Madame could be...difficult.

The recurring value of reading old books—no human foible, frailty, or conceit is new.

So often it does seem so…

Thanks for looking and listening, folks. We enjoy sending this podcast out each week, sharing news and stories and behind-the-scenes bits we don’t blast out across the regular “socials.”

If you’d like to receive all episodes, click on the button below (it says “Subscribe Now” but you won’t actually be subscribed until you review your options and confirm):

You can also give a gift subscription:

Or simply share this episode with someone who might enjoy it:

With gratitude,
Mike

---

Reader reviews of Mike’s latest book, Forty Acres Deep:

This book is a little masterpiece. Not only is it physically beautiful but also it is like nothing else I’ve ever read. Thank you so much.

The opening chapter of this book hits you like a 300 pound defensive lineman. A literary decleater.

To say that it’s a banger is an understatement- it’s a hot mix of Midwestern intellectual, our hardwired shame and guilt and resolve through action.

(Feed mill operator): I told a pastor friend this morning to read it as a means to help better understand some of the rural folks he's trying to minister to.

Signed copies and links to ebook and audiobook formats here.

Available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook from Amazon.

Available in paperback from BookShop.org.