Puerto Vallarta, Mexico – There are some jobs that teach valuable life lessons, and then there are jobs that make a person appreciate every other job she’ll ever have. For MiMi, reaching into aphid-covered corn tassels under a blazing Midwestern sun was definitely the latter. Looking back, she can still remember the moment she realized that, no matter what life had in store, she would probably never work that hard again.
When I was in high school, I lived in a very small town and there weren’t many jobs for teenagers. So in the summers, my friends and I would detassel corn. If you know what that means, you are likely from the Midwest.
We would meet in front of the local grocery store at 3: a.m. and climb into the back of an open farm truck that smelled like the last inhabitants were on their way to becoming bacon… if you know what I mean.
We were paid 50 cents an hour – 60 cents if we made it through the whole summer. I don’t know if they had child labor laws back then, but if they did, nobody was paying attention at DeKalb.
When we arrived at whatever field we were to work in, if the rows were short, we all cheered. Sometimes they were as long as a mile – or at least seemed like it.
Our crew of six girls climbed on to a metal torture machine which would move slowly through the rows of female corn, and we would pull their tassels out so they could be pollinated by the bull rows. Did you know that corn has sex? Now you do.
One lucky girl would walk behind the machine to get any tassels that were missed. We all wanted that position.
The driver of the machine was usually some college guy who was generally ticked off at girls. Our general consensus about him was that he had recently been dumped and was taking it out on us. We would beg for breaks just to have some water, and he would make us wait until we got to the end of each row.
Sometimes girls would have sunstrokes and have to lie down in the back of the stinky truck. (We envied those girls.) One girl even fell out of the truck one day and had to go to the hospital.
I remember one day as I reached my hand into an aphid-coated tassel (we were not allowed to wear work gloves), I had the thought, “I bet in my whole life I will never work this hard again.” I was 15 years old but I was right!
I suspect these farm jobs are the ones that Mexicans are taking, and they are more than welcome. I hope they are being paid a whole lot more than we were! I doubt there are many, if any, teenagers willing to do it anymore at any price…
Hasta luego,
MiMi Bomba
Writing with warmth, wit, and a deep affection for Puerto Vallarta, MiMi Bomba draws inspiration from classic humorists while creating a style all her own. Her stories celebrate the people, places, and experiences that make life in Puerto Vallarta both unpredictable and rewarding. Click HERE to read more essays by MiMi Bomba.
