Slogging Through A Summer Job

My worst summer job was noteworthy not in that it was uniquely awful but rather that it was ubiquitously awful.

If you grew up in an even semi-rural area of the Midwest in the 1970s, at the ripe age of 13, you had matured enough to spend part of your summer detasseling corn. I was enough of a city girl in my town of 13,000 not to know what a corn tassel was. I did, however, know that in 1978 the $2.65 an hour that detasseling paid far exceeded the 50 cents an hour I was paid for babysitting. That was a lot of 45rpm singles and Tiger Beats; so, when the opportunity arrived, I signed up.

It was perplexing that first day in the cornfield to hear the foreman talk about male and female corn, noting the rows that needed to be detasseled for maximum pollination and crop yield. Male and female corn? I saw none of the familiar markers of such distinction and snobbishly found the designations absurd.

Quickly I learned that the most painful aspect of detasseling was not the hard work, not the sunburn in the pre-SPF 50 days, it was not even the early morning walk to the pick-up point. No, the most painful part of detasseling is that corn hurts. Its leaves are stiff with sharp, cutting edges and a texture akin to a cat’s tongue. It cuts. It cuts your legs, your arms, your neck, your face. And where it cuts, those with sensitive skin such as mine were treated to a dose of “corn poisoning,” an itchy, painful red rash. Nothing ruined a good tan faster.

In the four summers I detassled, I learned to keep my arms covered with a light shirt and trudged on. Yet one day in the cornfield stands apart. We spent one 90-degree day working in a field beside which sat a massive mound of pig poo, that farmer’s fertilizer of choice. As large as a dump truck, it added a special odor to our day. It was the next day, however, that I remember most vividly.

Overnight, it rained. It poured. The skies opened up. And in that torrential downpour, the mound of poo was beaten flat. Flat and spread throughout the field. As we walked the rows that day, the wet, sticky, stinky pig excrement pulled our shoes from our feet with every step. Finally, we gave up, parked our shoes at the end of a row, and schlepped for the remainder of the day barefoot, slogging our way, literally, through crap for a day’s pay.