Lessons from the Tobacco Field

Happy Monday Pill Fans,

This past weekend, my youngest daughter reached her goal of saving enough money to purchase her first "big-ticket item." A Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board. I am proud of her because she learned that every dollar adds up, that you have to wait for some things, and that mom's Wii fit age is so laughable it will bring tears to your eyes.

I also learned the value of saving and hard work at a young age. But my lesson was a bit more, well, down and dirty. Here is my story.

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People are always astonished when I tell them that I spent the summer of my freshman year in high school picking tobacco. And not out of my teeth. I mean that I actually picked tobacco leaves. Out in a tobacco field. Under nets. Sometimes in 100 degree heat. Are you waiting for me to say I walked 10 miles home barefoot?

Don’t be silly; I rode home in the back of a pickup truck.

It’s a true story that I think is pretty incomprehensible based on my personality. I like to shop and dress in girly clothes and stay in nice hotels. I don’t even like gardening all that much. I’m not surprised at people’s shocked reaction. “You…worked in a…tobacco field! Really?”

Then I get the question about whether I grew up in the Deep South. To which I reply, “Practically.” It was actually Western Mass, but according to anyone who lives east of Worcester, it might as well have been Huntsville, Alabama. I reckon y’all get my drift?

It was a horrible, dirty job but I learned the greatest life lesson from it: If tobacco leaves are wet, it ain’t from the rain (there are no bathrooms in a tobacco field). Beyond that, I learned the value of a good education because I decided that manual labor was just too difficult a way to make a living. Especially for someone who weighed 90 pounds wet and had the strength of a fruit worm.

I lasted one summer and made the agricultural minimum wage of a whopping two dollars and some odd cents per hour. I somehow managed to purchase my first stereo from the money I earned during those eight grueling weeks. I also bought my first album which, I’m embarrassed to admit, was Elvis’ “Aloha, from Hawaii.” I know, total nerd. My sister was listening to Black Sabbath while I was singing along to “You Gave Me a Mountain.”

I was also the captain of the cheerleading team. And I wonder why she wanted to beat the daylights out of me.

Here’s the funniest part. My parents saw me off that first day – as I reluctantly leaped into the back of the pickup truck that came to a “rolling” stop in front of your house – and gave me exactly one hour before they expected to see me back home, exhausted and defeated. They had planned to give me a crash course in the true meaning of hard work.

Had I known the plan, my derriere would have been home long before the hour had expired. I simply had no idea that was an option. So I stayed.

The bottom line is that it did me some good and definitely knocked me down a few pegs. It also gave me a lifelong aversion to smoking. When you tie, sew and smell tobacco for eight hours a day, the last thing you want to do is suck it into your lungs. You’d much rather drink a six-pack of beer with your underage friends.

I also had a short stint at Burger King, which seemed like working at the Ritz compared to a humid barn filled with hormonal teenagers. That one didn’t teach me quite as much, except that the special sauce they always refer to is only mayonnaise and ketchup mixed, which is really not all that special. I’m not convinced that was a lesson worth learning based on the amount of Whoppers I ate while I was there.

So now my oldest daughter is coming of age and nearly ready to start earning some of her own cash. And the only thing I know for sure is that she won’t be working in a tobacco field, earning two bucks an hour and riding in the back of a pickup truck. At least I’m sure about the first two.

But I’m looking for the equivalent lesson; namely that money doesn’t come easy and that you need to work hard to get ahead in life. Where does one go today to get that? The employment office at Club Penguin? (If you don’t know what I’m referring to, you are being spared a $5.95 monthly membership fee that allows you to upgrade an igloo and buy pet Puffles. Doesn’t that sound like a good use of hard-earned cash?)

So maybe we will need to look a little harder for ways we can teach this lesson to our kids. But I’ll tell you from experience that I never forgot that summer. Or the words to “You Gave Me a Mountain.”