Remember that game you play on long road trips? You're driving along in silence then someone points and shouts, "Hey!" Everyone looks and the kids giggle because they've "Gottcha." It's only a stack of hay piled high in a farmer's field.

Silly as this sounds, the smell of fresh hay always conjures up fun and good times.

I'm not sure when I first smelled hay. It was either at the Shetland pony ride in Tilden Park--(who knew back then that the ponies came from Galleron Lane where ostriches now graze at Glenn Baker's)--Or when the Circus came to Oakland. Either way, hay would forever be associated with fun and excitement.

It's a humble crop. Who gives it any thought? But were Polly Anna a legume, she would surely be hay. If not for this modest grass, our lives would be less rich.

Hay is ubiquitous. There has never been a fair--county, state or city, without it. Next to cotton candy, the smell of hay is the most prevalent scent in the air.

One rarely smells hay in an environment that evokes sadness. Baled hay is often used as a safety barrier. It is placed around the Calistoga track during the sprint car races at the Napa County Fair-and tracks around the country.

It's de rigeur at rodeos. And rodeos are nothing, if not celebrations of fun-unless an errant bull catches a rodeo clown outside of the protective barrel. Still, we laugh, even if the clown doesn't.

Were it not for hay, we couldn't have grown up on the Lazy J with our cattle and horses. Ours was hardly a major cattle operation. We had ten breeders and a bull. They were mostly used as lawn mowers to keep the grass down and protect us from fires.

They were more like dogs than a herd of bovines.

Each had a name. We halter trained them, and would literally ride the larger calves like mules.

Naturally, the horses ate hay. When Mrs. Merrifield entrusted her mare to us while she weaned her colt, we put her in the barn and tied her up at night. What did we know? We were from the city. My brothers and I slept in the hay, until we were awakened by "Jinx", the mother rearing, kicking and tearing the 1884 pole barn down to get free.

When we got our first two calves, which we fed from a baby's bottle, we often slept on them out in the hay.

Getting the hay to our barn was as fun as life gets. We'd go over to Joe Burroughs's (now Seavey Vineyards) and load loosely baled oat hay ten to twelve feet high in the truck bed. We'd tie it down with ropes, climb to the top and lie flat as Jim Pop drove us back to the ranch (this was pre seat belt and PC days).

Usually, we tied it securely. One time, however, as we went around a curve on our dirt road, the entire load shifted and softly (as if in slow motion) toppled to the ground. Not only was no one hurt, it was so much fun, much to my father's chagrin, we tried to (intentionally) make it happen again.

Being from the City, we had never seen hay or barns except on TV. So that first winter in '57, we would hike in the rain to our surrounding neighbors (the closest was over a mile away), and climb in their barns, build forts and jump from bale to bale-loving it when entire walls of hay bales would collapse down on us. To this day, I can't imagine why they never complained to my parents.

Maybe they too were more interested in raising kids than hay.

The State Fair in Sacramento was a child's paradise. They had fireworks and a Ferris Wheel. We wanted to go on the scary rides, but why would a parent in St. Helena let a 14 and 10 year old ride the Grey Hound Bus (yes, we used to have one), over two hours to Sacramento to go on carnival rides?

We promised we wanted to go only for the Livestock Exhibitions (a minor exaggeration). They weren't fooled, but relented. We sprinted through the hay filled stalls, gazed at a couple of blue ribbons, and then headed for the midway. Lucky for Maggie, we won lots of disgusting glassware vases and ashtrays tossing dimes. We were sure we were helping out.

In Jr. High, Billy Atchley and I got 50 cents hour loading hay on Mr. Connelly's polled Herford ranch (now Joe Phelps Winery). Sometimes they let me drive the tractor, though I was only 12 or 13.

In high school, Kathy Greenfield had a "Hay ride" up to her house at the top of Spring Mountain (near Smith Madrone, today). I'll never forget who sat next to me in that wagon, though she'd probably deny it today.

One midnight, while returning to the Lair of the Bear where we worked in college, five of us saw hay stacks (as in a Breugel painting) in a farmer's field, outside Sonora. On impulse, we stopped the car under a full moon, snuck in and frolicked to our hearts content.

Hay is heroic. Not only does it protect lives during car races of all kinds it's used to control erosion for soon to be planted vineyards.

Moreover, no hay--no crop circles. No hay--no scare crows. No hay-no zoos. The list goes on.

Life would be duller without hay. No doubt about it. Where there's the smell of hay, there's the aroma of happiness.