Sneeze-buck a bale,sneeze-buck a bale- yes I remember it well, balancing on
a sled pulled along the ground by the baler. I was 16 and weighed 120 pounds; some of the green bales they said were running up to 70 pounds and the wires were digging pretty deep into my gloved hands. Later I heard about a marvelous invention called baling hooks.
The summer before, I worked green pea harvest 7pm-7am for a dollar an hour, with a pitchfork as wide as I was, I started out at 99 pounds ad was 120 by the end of the summer. Lived inma wheat ranch for two months after pea harvest and had the most amazing time. I learned responsibility and self reliance in a huge way and how to do a whole bunch of physical/mechanical stuff I'd never heard of.
We were up and at breakfast at 5:30am six days a week. On Sundays I was back home with my family. On Wednesday evenings my parents would drive out to visit me and it was really neat.
For breakfast there was bacon and eggs, pancakes, toast, sausage, steak, potatoes, fruit, fresh cold milk and coffee which I wasn't into yet. For lunch they'd bring me three huge sandwiches an a quart of cold milk in a mason jar. I would sit on the ground leaning back against the tire of my truck on the shady side, it was often in the 90's and start eating. For some reason a light breeze would always kick up an put just a little dust on my milk, looking as if it was pepper.
I was tall, very skinny and put on 20 pounds that summer. Plus I had learned how to drive, in a big wheat truck and could double clutch with the best of them. One day I was driving a whole load of wheat and crossing a dry creek when I pushed it a bit too hard and broke an axel. Gene saw memstranded out there and came by to se wha was happening. We swapped out a new axel right there in the creek bed, I was amazed by the ability of these people.
I was at that point 15 and by the time summer was over and back to school and taking drivers training was required. Driving a car with the shift on the column was easy peasy but I still double clutched when shifting down out of habit. Daddy made me go driving with him every evening for three weeks just to be sure I understood all the laws etc, before he'd let me get my license when I turned 16. I had to muster up to his standards and admit, I kind of did that with my daughter when she came of age. I was a single parent at that point and completely trusted her with the car- a beautiful little brand new Bronco II. I actually felt safer knowing that she was driving than her riding with her friends.
