We had a barn on the farm that we called the haybarn. It had two floors, and we kept the hay on the second floor. The hay was kept clean and dry on the second floor, where it was bound in bales using twine or wire. The bales were several feet long, and weighed around 80 pounds. It was handy to retrieve hay from the barn, since all you had to do was toss it down from the second floor, through the window, onto the ground or onto a trailer.

However, to get they hay up to the second floor, you had toss the bales up from the tractor/trailer. To make it easier, we parked the trailer inside the barn, beneath the access hole, and built a scaffolding of hay bales to carry up from trailer to second floor, through the access hole.

One time when I was about 14-16 years old, I was driving the tractor/trailer into the barn, and I hit the side of the barn. The barn wall was strong, so it didn’t break at first. However, it bounced the tractor back, and before I could stop the engine or push in the clutch, the tractor hit the barn several times.

By this time, I had learned to cuss. So I said a few choice words, backed the tractor out, and tried it again. This time, I successfully drove the tractor into the barn without incident. Fortunately, dad didn’t see this, or he would’ve had another reason to say “good night, Billy.”