My First Job

So Dad, in all his infinite wisdom, gave me my first job. He hired my brother and me to walk beans on the family farm.  We do a little work and we make a little cash.  A little.  We made a whopping $3.00 an hour.

The idea was that we would wake up early and head out to the field with Grandpa, and while he did other things, my brother and I would walk up and down the rows of beans with a corn hook.  We were told to hook the corn and pull the velvet weed and the cockleburs. It was a pain in the butt.  I hated it.

We walked up and down rows, miles and miles, in the blistering sun.  We were swarmed by locust and chased by critters.  I even lost my flip flops in the mud.  They were just sucked off my feet! I know, I know.  Why was I wearing flip flops?  I was 12!  And I didn’t wasn’t sock tan too….jeez! 

This job was pure torture.  Not my idea of a summer vacation at all – for only $3.00 an hour?  You have got to be kidding.  I wanted to be home with my friends, talking on the phone, getting a tan…not a farmer’s tan. 

That job lasted approximately sixteen and a half hours, for me.  Long enough for me to make the money to buy my first pair of NIKE Tennis shoes….leather ones with the light blue swoosh.  I had calculated the time exactly, and when I hit the magic number?  I was done. 

And Dad let me get away with it.  I was a brat…a spoiled brat.  He tried to guilt me into getting my fanny back out in the field, but there was NO WAY I was going back out into that field.  I had my shoes, and that was that.  Period.