Get your hand off of that pitchfork handle, you little twerp
Just what I wanted to do after becoming a high school graduate: Spend the summer hoeing sugar beets with my little sister. I was only 16, were you only 12? And therefore, illegal child labor? Cool hat, rolled up jeans, and saddle oxfords, the latest fashion for hoeing beets in the hot sun all day. What did we talk about as we whacked up one row and down another all day? It was a long walk up to the upper field to start with, back at lunch, back to the field, back home at night, haul the water jug, take our hoes home to sharpen them on the grindstone in the shop. We did o.k., didn't we? Happy birthday.
6 comments:
I don't like to quibble with you after you've put such a wonderful birthday present on the blog for me, but that was the summer before my junior year in high school - maybe 1951? Wish we had a journal keeper so we had the accurate date. It was darned hard work, but I felt so grown up and accepted as your equal - after all, you were the really smart one! Oh, yes, and I will admit to being only three years younger than you. The year I was 14 on the last of May, you were only 16 until September. ;-)
definitely I hoed beets the summer after I graduated. When I came back in March 1951 to help dad get the crops in, I did tractor work, hay baling, etc., but no beets. I was back in Laramie late June or early July.
P.S. plus in 1950 I worked at the First National Bank in Powell, and hoed no beets that year.
P.S., the fact that I did not turn 17 until September didn't mean I was not 16 all summer. And I was never home again after about June 1951.
Okay, you win. Still wish I'd kept a journal. It was quite an adventure.
I definitely remember that whether Dwight hoed beets the summer before Elizabeth was a junior or not, she did. Eliz, didn't Dad pay you $100 and with part of that money, you bought your jr. class ring?
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