I like this picture. It reminds me of days gone by and what follows.
The Wheat Harvest
Once many years ago when I was sixteen in the early summer of the year and looking for a job, I knocked on the doors of all the oil companies but no one was hiring. I hitchhiked twenty-five miles to a small town known for it’s oil field service work and talked to several secretaries, a couple of foremen, one CEO, but nobody was hiring.
I walked back through town and a half mile on a black top the highway so I could hitch a ride back home. As I walked along the two lane road just before reaching the U.S. Highway, I noticed for the first time a very large field and far in the distance on the far side of this field were several vehicles and five or six people..
I wondered to myself if that was some kind of commercial enterprise. And then, one way to find out was to hike over there and see what was happening. And so I did.
When I arrived, A man asked me if he could help me? I asked is the boss around? “Yeah," he said, "He's over in that trailer.”
I walked over and rapped on the door and immediately heard a ‘come in.’
I did, and he asked what can I do for you? I told him I was looking for work, noticed his gathering here on this side of the field from the road over there, and thought you might be looking for another hand. He told me to sit down and wanted to know what I had done, where I'd had worked and asked about schooling. I told him I had quit school and now that I had it was mandatory that I aways have a job. It wasn’t too important what I did, but a job was.
He told me he was going to pull out in the morning about eight-thirty. If I was here, I had a job, if not, he wished me luck. I don’t recall asking what he paid. I’m thinking the rule of thumb is if I don’t make a hand to suit him, he’ll fire me and send me packing. On the other hand if he don’t pay enough I can quit and find something else. I hitch a ride the twenty-five miles home, told my parents I was going on a wheat harvest and didn’t know when I’d be back.
I put two changes of clothes in a grocery sack, mom packed some two days worth of food for me. I packed my razor and comb and what other things I thought I might need, called a friend to take me over there the next morning on his motorcycle and was on site at seven-thirty. I had fourteen dollars in my pocket.
I knew nothing of a wheat harvest but I learned in a hurry. I drove the truck they poured the wheat into. Through the Texas panhandle, across the Oklahoma panhandle, into western Kansas. I did what I was told to do.
What I didn’t realize when I signed on was the hours worked each day. We started when it was light enough to see to operate the combine. We quit when it got too dark to see.
Up near Colby, Kansas it started raining, not just a sprinkle but huge thunderstorms, for three days. It was too wet to work, to get into the fields so we serviced all the vehicles. I had been sleeping on the ground on a small tarp under the truck but with all the rain, I got in the truck and tried to sleep. Two or three of the guys went into Colby to play some pool and maybe hook up with some gals. I didn’t go into town. I was trying to save my money and I lacked experience for pool or anything else. I started to quit there in northwestern Kansas but decided to stick it out. I busied myself fooling with the equipment. One of his hands quit at Colby.
When we left Colby the owner put me on the combine which I operated for the rest of the trip. We worked up through western Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and South and North Dakota. The owner had contracted to harvest the wheat from Kansas up to the Canadian border usually a year ahead of time. Occasionally someone would already have their wheat cut in which case the owner would hustle another job or jobs, whatever was needed. He worked two combines. The one I worked and another a few miles east of us
When we got to the border he told me he had about two more weeks of work harvesting berries in Canada if I wanted to work. He said you can stay with my family. I thanked him for the offer but told him I’d be heading back to Texas.
He told me I made a good hand, never complained about the hours or the conditions, did a good job every where he put me and caught on to operating that combine quicker than most. He said he was going to give me a bonus and buy me a bus ticket back to Wichita Falls, Texas which he did. This dumb kid didn’t know beans about much of anything when I signed on but by the time I got back to Texas I was almost an expert on operating a wheat harvest.
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