From 1936-1950, my family lived on a 88 acre farm in the town of Lodi, NY. The farm was located on the Nealey Road about a mile from the village of Lodi. There were only 2 residences on that road, ours and Manley Hayes' shack.
Manley's shack was a one room wooden ten foot square building. Built on a small lot with an old outhouse and two dogs.
Manley lived there from 1946 after the war until the middle '50s. He worked a two jobs, one at the Lodi Hotel and the other, all day beer drinking. I knew him for about eight years and I never saw him sober. He never drove a car and walked everywhere carrying a burlap bag over his shoulder. No one ever knew what was in that burlap bag. We guessed clothes, or food, or booze, or maybe money.
During WW2, Manley was drafted by the army at the age of 42 and was wounded sometime in 1945. The word was, he fell of a truck of potatoes and broke his back. During the war it was said, that he only worked kitchen detail, because of his advanced age. The truth in this history is debatable, but it always made a good story. I'm sure he had a military pention to keep him going
In 1947 our family was snowed in and the roads were completely plugged. We needed food and supplies, so My dad hooked up his team of horses to a bobsled and we all headed to the Lodi grocery store.
It was snowing so hard we couldn't ten feet in front of us. But we went across fields to hit the plowed main road. It took about a hour to get there. Being only five years old, I thought this trip was the most fun I'd ever had and I remember it well.
On our trip back home, we saw someone laying along side of the road in the snow. Yep, it was Manley Hayes, drunker than a polecat. My mother and dad helped him into the sled and we took him home. He later told us he was just tired and laid down in the snow to rest. His cabin was nice and warm, so we didn't worry about him.
One time Manley walked down to our house and asked for a glass of water. He stated that he wanted to take the whole glass full home because his home made well was dry. My mother made him take 2 gallons with him. After he left, my dad said that he never drank much water, so he didn't know how much to ask for.
At about age seven, I had the job of picking black raspberries along our dirt road. The hedgerows were full of them and Manley would come out and help me pick. I never told my parents and they wondered how I could pick so many berries. Manley also helped me ride my first two wheel bike.
We sold our farm in 1950 and moved to Interlaken, never to see Manley again.
In 1960, I drove down our old Nealey Road, maybe looking for Manley. His old shack was gone and not one sign of anyone ever living there. The hedgerows were gone too and a new gravel road greeted me.
I later found out that he had died sometime in the late 1950s.
I now live one mile (as the crow flies) from our old farm and Manley's old shack. I think of Manley often, as I drive down that road. I see his smile with baccie juice dripping from the corner of his mouth. Also the torn jacket pocket with a tobacco pouch string tag hanging out. His little out dated hunting license button pinned on his dirty old hat and his worn shoes tied with different colored knotted laces.
Here's to you Manley......and what ever you carried in that burlap bag
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