Farm Hand

By Nate Bender

2/27/15

Early life experiences often make indelible impressions, influencing later and longer themes in one’s life journey.  And so it is for me, popping up in the autumn years of my life yet still.  In this short story I seek to capture a few of the many anecdotes connected to the farm labors of my rural Iowa youth, spanning the years 1953 to 1961.

Growing up on a seven acre mini-farm adjoining a village of some 200 residents, my two brothers and I were offered ample exposure to the unfolding seasonal markings of mother nature.  Our activities were essentially devoid of close supervision, resulting in sibling excursions into creative play.  It was in this setting I became aware of my natural bent to day-dream and drift into other worlds.

As time passed into our pre-teen and teen years, nature made her mark on the Bender-boys-three, each of us separated in age by at least one year.  We grew faster than any of our peers, and coupled with the residuals of conservative Lutheran admonishments, such as…..idle hands are the devil’s workshop…..pain is penance for sinning, we became targets for laboring on local farms. The thought that I had a choice when farmers solicited my employ was never realized.  Instead, I accepted any and all invites, even when I really didn’t want to do the specific work.

Older brother Reuben, with his superior strength and natural leanings toward physical movement, led the way.  In many ways all three of us mingled more often with older youth and adults than with our peers.  Looking back, we were ‘man-children’ which created a shortened youth!  On the other hand we were imbued with strong, sustaining  work-ethic values.

My earliest memories of being hired as a farm hand was when I was maybe in the fifth grade, or about 10 years old.   I was paid fifty cents and hour to walk behind a tractor-towed wooden sled, picking up rock, large and small, which can cause damage to tilling equipment in a field being prepped for planting corn, beans or oats.  At the end of the day I had earned maybe 3 or 4 dollars and was bone tired.  The feel of having my own spending money, regardless of its size, eased the fatigue and made a lasting mark on my ability to be self-sufficient.

Another grade-school era farm labor job involved joining my brothers and several other youth to walk a field of corn, with stalks roughly knee high (must have been around the fourth of July!).  With hoes in tow, our mission was to hoe out the many thistles found between the rows.  While this job was not as labor-intense as other jobs, the work created physical fatigue and notable sun burns by the end of the day.  Sun screen, long-sleeve shirts and hats were virtually non-existent on youth in those days.  A side note was my left index finger became imbedded with a thistle thorn that ultimately led to a severe infection requiring medical surgery.

During the Spring of my 13^th year, I was asked to do something I had never done before…to plow a 120 acre field in preparation for planting.  The young farmer was new in the area and was working a full-time job at the John Deer tractor works plant in Waterloo.  He was behind in his farming efforts, and wanted me to fill the void.  After a brief orientation on operating the tractor and the attached plow, I was entrusted without further supervision to till his soil.

Days turned into plowing throughout the night, challenging my ability to remain alert.  Near the end of my plowing endeavors, I had an accident while driving the tractor back to get refueled.  The plow inadvertently lowered when I crossed a wooden bridge, caught on one of the planks, and brought me to a quick halt.  No problem, the farmer told me and then directed to drive the tractor and attached plow nine miles to a nearby town for repair.  Accepting payment for my work gave me mixed feelings of pride and regret.

Upon graduating eighth grade in 1957, I was six feet four inches in height and growing.  I was forthwith recruited by Werner Poock to work full time on his farm, 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, six days a week for the sum of $75 per month during the summer months.  Even though the offer represented a big boost to my self-esteem, the long hours were daunting.  Most days, I rode my refurbished bicycle to and from his farm. 

My work taskings at the Poock farm were many and varied.  Retrieving the milk cows from a distant pasture I accidently came in contact with an electric fence.  To this day I have a fear of electrical undertakings.  I cleaned out calf and hog pens of their accumulated manure (crudely referred to as ‘pitching shit!’) and spread the product on a field being prepped for crop rotation.  I baled hay and stacked the bales into the barn’s hay loft.  I filled silos with freshly cut hay (clover and alfalfa), which required me to ascend the silo and enter its 35 foot tall oval chamber to compact the loose product.  I assisted in piglet castrations.  I cleaned out a chicken house of its high nitrogen manure and a goodly number of other laborings.

This summer of 1957, I also turned 14 and was invited to play on the town’s high-performance adult fast-pitch soft-ball team as its youngest member.  Somehow I was able to surpass the fatigue of my long days in farm hand work and gained a second wind to play ball on certain evenings and weekends.

Throughout my high school years, virtually every Saturday was occupied with farm hand work, by which time my hourly rate ascended to $1.00 per hour.  I usually accumulated $10.00 for a long day of hard work. More often than not, these work callings were the day after a football or basketball game when a day of rest to recover from the exertions would have been preferred.  Instead, I could be found doing jobs farmers didn’t want to do themselves.  Cleaning animal pens (pitching shit, if you will!) dominated the Fall and Winter months.  It was during these times I publically reported my desire to never be a manual laboring person once I graduated high school. A white-collar vocation surely awaited my discovery!

So what are the take-away messages to be gleaned from these recollections?  For one, my emotional and psychological make-up is not suited for farming, even though I am convinced I could farm, if my survival depended on it.  Secondly, freedom and confidence in self-expression would have allowed me to say NO to job offers I really did not want to do.