Our Maine Street's Aroostook Issue 10 : Fall 2011 | Page 52

am thankful for the experience and wish my own daughter had had that same opportunity. You really appreciate every nickel when you work hard for it. Our day began at four a.m. when the alarm clock resounded its angry call, and Wayne Knight’s voice blared on the radio, “It’s a beautiful day and all farmers are going right on time!” followed by Dick Curless singing “Tater, tater, tater, tater; tater raising man. Pick em up, pick ‘em up, put ‘em in the barrel…” I came to hate Wayne’s voice and Dick’s singing. We kids often prayed for rain, just as kids today pray for a snowstorm big enough to cancel school for the day. So, we dragged our weary bodies out of bed, put on our “picking clothes,” ate breakfast, grabbed our lunches and headed out. Did I mention that it was still dark when we got up? Arriving at the field at the break of dawn, Dad headed off to his truck while Mom and the kids went to their sections to get set for the day. Sections were established in each field with sticks. The field boss measured out your section with paces and drove your sticks into the ground at the beginning and end of your section. The kids, except my brother Joe, always wanted small sections, and Mom, whose daily goal was 100 barrels, wanted a large section. While we knew we would be paid for our work, only the adults and my brother Joe really thought about the correlation between a large section and the pay at the end. The adults were very protective of their sections and berated any picking neighbor who dared to encroach by moving the stick too much to their advantage. The kids sometimes “gave away” some of their sections so they would not have to pick as many potatoes. So, the day began. We picked the potatoes up, put them in our baskets, dumped them in our barrels and when the barrel was full, we placed our ticket on it. The truck then picked up the barrels with its grapple hook. Dad either drove the truck or ran the grapple. The ticket placed on the barrel identified the picker; at the end of each day the field boss counted the tickets and credited us for each one. At that time we were paid 25 cents for each barrel we picked. I was happy if I could get 25 barrels a day. If you picked up your section fast enough, you had time to rest before the tractor came by again. Sometimes you had to help a fellow picker who had fallen behind and had six or eight rows of potatoes still on the ground. If you were really lucky, you had time to take a bathroom break. Where was the bathroom? The woods of course! There was no such thing as a port-a-potty in the fields in those days. Unless you brought your own, leaves were your Charmin. At noon we stopped for lunch. The bologna sandwich on white bread, crisp fall apple, steaming hot chocolate from the thermos, and Drake’s Coffee Cake or 52 FALL 2011 Ring Ding are like a five-star dinner when you are starved. We didn’t even care that potato dirt usually got in the food. We were hungry and tired. We usually sat on the ground and ate; sometimes we sat in the car. If we finished on time, we could play a bit before it was time to go back to work. After lunch we continued picking until 6 p.m. when the day ended. We gathered our baskets, put them on a barrel and loaded into the car to head home for baths and a hot dinner. Tess always had a home-cooked meal ready for us when we got home – chicken pie with her flaky homemade crust, meatloaf and baked potatoes, chop suey. Whatever she made was delicious! After dinner and baths it was off to bed for the kids. But the day was not over for Mom and Dad as they still had to wash our picking clothes and make lunches so everything was ready for the next day. This was our routine six days a week for three weeks. We were paid on Saturdays and gave our checks to Mom and Dad. At the end of the three weeks we were given one quarter of our earnings to spend as we wanted. The rest went toward our winter clothes. My sister and I always spent our money on toys. Joe put his in savings. So what did we learn? We learned that money has to be earned and that earning it can be very hard. We learned that the farmers depended on us to get their crops out of the ground. We learned what parents will do to take care of their children. Most of all, we learned that hard work is rewarded and family is the most important part of your life. I suppose we can instill these lessons today, but it is much more difficult. Face it, our lives and our children’s lives are easier today than they were 40 years ago, although we don’t always think so. And while the farmers’ physical labor may be easier, their lives are not necessarily so. Think about this as you enjoy the rewards of Aroostook County potato farmers’ hard work and dedication to the Maine potato.