Spud Days

I discovered Blogging for Books at Buzz's. I thought I'd give it a go. And by the way, this is all true.





The mud sucked at my boots, desperately tugging at my feet so that every step was a greater struggle than the last. I knew that my demeanor was different, that all the other guys were chuckling at me. I wasn't looking at the plants. I wasn't looking at anything in particular. My head hung low under the weight of one of my migraines and the added oppression of the sun roasting my bare neck. The fact that the sprinklers were on and we were all soaked to the skin didn't help either. My whole body was chafing. The furthest thing from my mind was diseased potatoes. Not that I could have recognized one if I saw it.

Two weeks earlier we new guys were given an abbreviated lesson on how to spot diseases like leafroll and PVY. I really tried at first. Mike, my boss, a skinny, scruff-bearded guy, showed us what to look for. "See how these leaves are yellow and rolled up? You've got to get rid of it." I couldn't see it but I nodded agreeably like the rest of the guys and watched as Mike dug out the plant completely and then chopped it up with his shovel. I still couldn't tell any difference between it and the other plants. And then came the first test, which I failed miserably, of course. I went up the row searching for yellow, curled leaves, but they all looked like that to me. I started to dig one up and Mike screamed, "There's nothing wrong with that plant! Keep moving!" But, I thought, I'm just following the Roguer's Rule: When in doubt, dig it out. Of course if I did that, there wouldn't be any potatoes left to harvest. I tiptoed along the row a couple more feet and heard another yell: "What the f*** is wrong with you, you f***in' idiot! Get that plant!" I looked around for a minute and then gingerly began to stab at one. "No! Sh**, Kid! How the hell did you get this job?" and he dug out the plant behind me. I got a little better after that, though I'm not sure how. It was mostly luck. Every few feet I'd pick out a plant that I thought might be a culprit and jump on it. After three correct guesses in a row, Mike left me to my six rows. Some of the other veterans kept a watch on me for awhile and they were just a hateful as Mike, but eventually they got caught up in their own work and left me alone.

I stopped for a moment to dig out a plant, although I was certain I was fooling nobody. No one was talking. It was a particularly hot afternoon and we'd been at it since 5:30 am. The sprinklers should have been a comfort in the heat, but they weren't. There are few things worse than trudging mile after mile knee-deep in mud in drenched jeans. Why did I ever agree to do this? I thought, my eyes still on the ground a few feet ahead of me.

My dad was always on my case about getting a job during the summer. I usually balked but this summer my friend, Chris, and I were fed up with having no money. There were things we wanted, a boom box, for instance, but we were destitute. In addition, Idaho Falls was about the most boring place two teenage kids could imagine. Maybe a job would be just the thing for us. So we looked in the paper. There were the usual fast food jobs but those were boring and too much work. Then we saw a chance to earn $6.00 an hour (an unheard of amount when the minimum wage was $3.25). "Hardworking
individuals needed to work 8 to 10 hour days for the summer roguing potatoes," the ad said. We talked about it for awhile. What was roguing? Was it really that hard? We had both thought about moving irrigation pipe and it couldn't be harder than that. So we applied. The address was a single-wide trailer, a couple of miles from our neighborhood. It was Mike's house. The first thing he said to me was, "What the hell are you wearing a tie for? This ain't no office job!" I felt stupid. My mother had told me to dress up so I did. But, in spite of my tie and my neatly combed hair, Chris and I both got the job. We chatted excitedly about our new fortune and had the money spent in about half an hour.

The first morning was rough. I was used to sleeping till noon and now I had to get up at 4:30 am. I drove to the place we were supposed to gather and wait for Mike. The rest of the crew was already there. Most of them were as new as me but there were a couple who'd been doing it for ten or twelve years. As far as I was concerned, this was only for a few months to get me some spending money. There was no way this would be a career. Mike arrived and we piled into the back of his pickup and rode about 45 minutes to our first job. After an hour I knew I'd made one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

I looked up and saw that we were coming to the end of the field at last. It was at least a mile long and we had gone back and forth on it, end to end, all day. I didn't have a watch but I was sure it was around 4:30. It was going to be a short day. We were finished with the field and there was not enough time to tackle another one. I made a decision right there. After two weeks on the job (it seemed more like a year), I was going to quit. I would call Mike on the phone that night and let him know I wasn't cut out for this. Chris was, though. He'd made friends with the rest of the crew and never seemed tired. He was going to make it through the whole summer.

I thought about the past two weeks. It had certainly been an experience. But I had never worked for someone so degrading before. On about the third day of being baked in the sun, I had decided to bring a hat to work. I was already singed to the point of not being able to sleep at night, so I thought it might help. The only one I could find was narrow-brimmed one my dad had. It was sort of like a fishing cap. I pulled the brim down as far as I could to keep the sun off me. In the field that day, it drew attention to me. "Where you get that ugly f***in' hat!" Mike said. And that day he watched me more carefully than ever, ridiculing me at every step.

On another day we were crop-dusted by a low-flying plane. I thought he'd avoid hitting us with the poison but he didn't. The roar from the engine reverberated off the ground, pulverizing my eardrums.

On another occasion we were on our way home when the pickup jolted upward, throwing us around under the camper shell. We looked out the window and saw one of the rear tires racing ahead of us. It bounced over a canal and shot into a field doing about thrity miles per hour. Then it reached the end of the field and shot straight up into the air. We waited for half an hour for Mike and Dave to retrieve it and "fix" the truck. The axle was broken but somehow we made it home. I think we averaged about 20 mph.

But the worst thing that had happened to me was the day there was a lull in the work. We'd just finished a field and Mike went to check on another farmer to see if he was ready for us. While we waited for him to return, a couple of the guys started to dig a large hole near the road at the end of the field. As they dug, someone else explained that there was a tradition among the crew. New guys were buried in the dirt up to their necks. I couldn't believe it. No one was going to bury me. But I was the only one they could catch. As soon as they grabbed me, I gave up. There was no point in struggling, after all. Two of the veteran roguers sat me down in the hole and held me while the rest of the guys filled it up. It wasn't long before they could let go. I was encased in dirt and I couldn't even move a finger. They said the custom was that the new guy had to get himself out. I started to struggle and the dirt gradually loosened. I tried not to show the panic. I'm not claustrophobic but I don't like people laughing at me. I finally got a hand to where I could start pushing the dirt away when Mike drove up. He got out of the truck and threw a shovelful of dirt on me for good measure. He laughed at me and I thought he might spit some of his chew on me, but he just said, "Get him out of there. We've got to be at the next field in five minutes."

I got to the end of the row at last and jabbed at a healthy plant, plucking it out and chopping it in half. On the ride home I endured the jibes from the rest of the guys in silence. "Dude, you looked dead out there. You could barely walk."

That night I plucked up what was left of my courage and called Mike.

"Hello, Mike? I'm not going to make it tomorrow."

"Why not? We need you. We've got three fields to cover tomorrow."

"I just can't do it anymore. I'm not the right guy for this. I don't even know what I'm doing out there."

Mike sounded pissed off. He told me I could come get my check on Monday.

My dad drove me over to Mike's house and I reluctantly knocked on the door. "Where the f*** were you on Friday?" He shouted.

"I told you I wasn't coming."

"No you didn't. You said your last day was today. We waited for twenty minutes. We were late for our first job and couldn't finish all of them because of you."

"Mike, I told you I wasn't going to be there."

"The f*** you did. Get the f*** out of my house." He threw my check on the ground.

Chris rubbed my failure in my face for the rest of the summer. I was a little envious when he brought home his new boom box with the three channel equalizer, but not when he showed me his shredded kegger boots, damaged from the vines. Apparently what I went through was nothing. It was spring time and the plants were still small. As they matured they covered the ground and grew waist-high. I'm glad I got out of it when I did.