Comments:
Jon & I were talking last week and he asked how I grew over 9 inches from the smallest boy from RJHS to almost 6 feet at DHMS graduation…. he wanted me to share my explanation with you.
Here is that story…
During the summer between my sophomore and junior year @ DMHS, I got a job as a laborer, (and number one flunky), on a 120 herd dairy farm in Utica (upstate) New York. I was able to negotiate a terrific deal at $50/month plus room and board! Life was good!
My employers, Mr. & Mrs. Hughes, were great people except when Mr. Hughes woke me up at 4:30 AM to bring the cows in from pasture to be milked. Also, they did not believe in, or couldn’t afford, automation. Even in the 1950’s, with most dairy operations, manure was automatically transported to a spreader for crop fertilization… but not the Hughes’s operation.
So, after breakfast, one of my main jobs was to load and unload, by shovel, all the manure deposited after the morning milking and the previous evening milking. I would drive a 2 horse drawn manure wagon to a monster pile in one of the fields for future spreading. Are you getting the picture here? I worked 12 hour days x 7 days a week for $1.66/day! Please don’t do the math on how much this was per hour!!
OK, one morning, at the monster pile, I was unloading as usual. My feet are straddling the wagon. Even with knee boots I hated to stand in the stuff. For some unknown reason a life altering event then happened…. the horses lurched backwards! In turn this caused me to fall forward. Shovel went flying and I began to see my life pass before me. My hands were now deep in it and sliding forward and outward. Only thing that saved me from going all the way under was the wagon was built about 5-6 feet wide. Regardless, I was covered from chin to toe…. not unlike poor Jamaal from the outhouse scene in “Slumdog Millionaire”.
Now shift to I’m back home after 3 months away and my Mom and Dad are seeing me for the first time and saying….”it looks like you grew 6 inches this summer”!
Attached is a 1956 picture of that kid with his faithful horses and wagon. If you look closely you can probably see him growing and now you know why.
Tod
