It's a Normalized Form of Abuse to Force Farm Kids to Operate Heavy Machinery
Rural areas see children as free labor, not human beings
I was probably younger than 10 when my dad handed me a gas-powered string trimmer.
“I need you to cut the weeds around the storage racks for the irrigation pipes. We need to build you up. Your arms are too scrawny. It's time for you to earn your keep.”
The string trimmer was so heavy I could barely lift it. It had a strap that went over my shoulder that dug into my flesh. It smelled of gas.
He took me out to the field where the racks were and kicked me out of the pickup truck. We unloaded the string trimmer and a gas can, then he was off. This was to be my day.
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I set about trying to figure out how to start up the trimmer. Fortunately it had some instructions written on the handle. It never crossed my mind to not attempt to do the task I'd been assigned. I knew it wouldn't be an excuse if I came back to the house and said, “I couldn't figure out how to get it started.”
I'd tried that before.
“What are you, stupid? Aren't you supposed to be a smart kid? You're telling me you can't even figure out how to start a gas trimmer? Don't come in here with those lies. You're just lazy. You just wanted to get out of doing the work.”
I didn't want to be berated like that. My dad had told me that smart people could figure out how to operate machinery they'd never used before. I wanted to be a smart person. That was my identity. I saw how he treated people he didn't think were smart.
He barely thought of them as human beings.
The trimmer had a little rubber button you used to prime the motor. It had a pull cord. There was some combination where you had to pull a trigger and pull the cord. I tried, but I could barely make the cord move.
It was early in the morning, but it was already hot. I wished he'd dropped me off with some water. Who knows when he'd be back? It was likely that I'd see somebody else driving about later in the day. I'd probably be able to flag them down if I got too miserable.
I pulled on the cord a few more times. Tears came to my eyes as I despaired being able to perform this task, but I pushed them away. Tears were “weak.” If I came home crying I'd be treated worse than if I came home defiant.
Already I knew that he'd respect me more if I poured the gasoline on the house and set it alight than if I came knocking on the door while begging for mercy.
Eventually, I set the trimmer down on the dirt road. I oriented myself so I could get better leverage and gave the cord a couple more pulls. It roared to life!
I lifted the trimmer to get back into the harness and the plastic cord slapped my ankle, cutting through my jeans. I almost fell from the pain, but I didn't want to have to get the trimmer started again. Now that it was running, I knew I could at least do some work before my dad returned.
The relief that flooded through me helped deaden the pain from the cut in my ankle.
Now I knew to stay away from the dangerous end. Finally getting the harness back over my shoulder, I struggled to hold on to the string trimmer. The rack was mounted next to the road. The side of the road sloped down into a ditch. It was steep, and I had another challenge orienting my body so I could bring the spinning trimmer around to meet the base of the wood.
On my first pass, the trimmer kicked up a bunch of gravel. Some of it was flung back at my face. I wished I'd brought safety goggles, but it was too late to ask for them now.
I laughed at the idea of stopping work with that excuse. “I couldn't do the job dad, you forgot to give me safety goggles.”
That wouldn't work. That would be taken as another excuse for laziness.
So, I crawled around on the slope, often on my knees. I tried to push the trimmer forward to cut the grass without overbalancing and tumbling into the ditch. Sweat poured down my brow. I was hungry. My ankle hurt.
Just as I began to get the hang of it, I noticed my cutting width had gotten smaller. The string was getting shorter.
Fortunately, I remembered that somebody had shown me how to periodically lengthen the string. The trimmer had a button on the bottom, you had to hit it against the ground and centrifugal force would send the string out.
I struggled back up to the dirt road and slammed the trimmer on the ground. It kicked up another cloud of stinging dust. I spit and coughed.
“Well, dang!”
I needed something harder to slam the trimmer against. Looking around, I found a large rock. After a few tries, I managed to get the string extended. I could see the flashing orange of the cutting zone.
I scrambled down and finished the rack.
The road stretched out ahead of me with racks for irrigation pipes set at various intervals. Struggling under the weight of the trimmer, I reached down and picked up the gas can. Then I marched to the next job.
My dad had left me with plenty of gas, but he hadn't brought me any extra string. I only had to do about three racks before the string ran out. No matter how many times I bashed the end on a rock, no more string came out. I turned off the machine and pushed on the button while pulling the string.
It was out.
I set the string trimmer aside. Relief flowed through me. He couldn't get angry at me for this. He was the one who'd failed to bring me extra string. I crawled into the ditch and got a handful of water for my neck and hair. Feeling refreshed, I checked my injured ankle.
It had stopped bleeding. My cotton sock had acted like a bandage. It didn't even really sting anymore.
I set the string trimmer and the gas can next to an irrigation rack. I didn't want it to get run over if somebody should come along. Then I found some shade beneath the irrigation pipes. I sat down to wait for somebody to come and get me. If nobody came before it got dark, I'd walk. But it was too hot to walk right then.
My thoughts turned inward, and I employed a trick I used often when I was abandoned in some horrible place. I tried to remember Star Wars scene for scene. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine every detail. If you concentrate hard enough, the experience is even more immersive than watching a movie.
I still use that trick today. It's how I invent stories.
Eventually, a pickup pulled up. It was the guy my dad had hired to help that summer.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I was supposed to trim these racks, but I ran out of string,” I replied. I tried to hold it together, but I also made it clear I was ready to go back home. The last thing I wanted was for this guy to hand me a packet of string and send me back to work.
He didn't offer that.
“I can finish this up for you. Come on, get in the truck, I'll give you a ride.”
He loaded up the trimmer and gas. I climbed into the front seat. We didn't speak as we made our way back to the house.
At home, I found that my dad had left for the day, so I got cleaned up and went to watch TV. I knew how to avoid him when he got home. I knew saying I'd run out of string was a good excuse, but the best strategy was to avoid the conflict.
With any luck, by the time he saw me again he'd have forgotten all about the fact that he'd sent me out there to trim all the irrigation racks.
Avoidance was always the best strategy. I got so good at it that I haven't talked to him in almost 3 decades.
The last time he reached out to me he said, “Why do you have to be so negative? Why can't you focus on the good times?”
I do focus on the good times.
Those are the moments when I shut my eyes and I fall into another world that I create in my mind. Reality melts away and I'm surrounded by love and compassion and kindness and joy.
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This was so well-written I felt myself in your shoes.
My childhood on a farm didn’t leave much room to be a child. I was a farmhand starting at age 5.
This piece triggered so many memories: The unbearable heat andcstinging sweat of hours in the fields with no water. Profound neglect. Cruelty. Being reminded on a near daily basis what a burden we kids were. His rage when the school insisted my parents send me to school washed of manure from milking and my cheap sneakers soaked with cow piss and crap. The unimaginable rage when a sister needed glasses.
Self-doctoring wounds.
I saw a doctor once (for my Kindergarten physical) before the age of 15 when a neighbor paid for me to be treated after I collapsed in their driveway. Yeah. Less than human. The vet was called, but never a doctor.
My body is crisscrossed with scars from untreated wounds from accidents and from being whipped with a lamp cord. For not being outside working.
I got away and built a life, but I still sometimes weep for that little girl and for all the kids like us. I mourn for the saddness we still carry.
I sometimes envision us finding each other and holding hands and hugging it out while we let the pain seep out into soil we toiled over.
So very sad. And cruel. I grew up woking on the farm, but thankfully my dad was a decent reasonable man who knew a kid’s limits. And protected us. I can’t imagine your loneliness …