Remembrance of Windfalls Past

Wendy at On the Front Porch is posting about choosing corn today. Reading that was like taking a bite of Proust's Madeleine cookie--I was thrown back to remembering a week when I was 11, and how I earned the first money I ever made by picking, shucking, and selling corn. My friend and I spent a week sitting in her father's field. He had advertised self-pick corn for five cents an ear, or ten cents if we girls had picked it.

It was hot. We had a blanket spread out under an oak tree, and we might have had folding chairs. Our job, when not picking corn, was to sit there and wait for people to come by the field, count their corn, and take their money. We had a cooler of water, and some books to read, and no adult supervision. Today, I am kind of amazed that our parents let us sit in a field by the road, all by ourselves, for hours at a stretch every day. We were only a couple of miles from my friends house, though, and it was pretty rural out there.

I have heard some theory of memory that claims we record more memories in our childhood and youth, and then as we get older, it's like watching a movie on fast-forward. We haven't recorded as much data. The details that jump out are fewer, and those we have are not as vivid. I think that's definitely true. Think about being a teenager, or being in college, and then think about being 32, if you've gotten there yet. Is there a memory and an overarching feeling that just takes you right back to being 32 the way there is for 15? It's like my early life was recorded in higher definition than the rest.

So I have many sensory impressions of that week, the mud between the corn rows, the sharp leaves, and the worms and bugs. Lord, the worms and bugs. The extremes of hot sun and cool shade. And I also remember that I was reading the novel version of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. And that sometimes my friend and I got along great, and sometimes we bickered, and once we had to go find a phone to use, so we walked across the road and knocked on the door of a trailer, and the girl who opened the door was someone we knew from school. She was a sweet girl, and I remember thinking, "Mustn't let her feel embarrassed that she lives in a trailer." I guess I was a snot-nosed kid, but I meant well.

Ooh, and the big payoff, and where I was going when I started this post, was that at the end of the week, my friend's dad paid us each $100. I have no idea if he took a loss on that corn or not. But $100, it was astronomical! We had a big shopping trip to spend it. There haven't been many times since when I felt that rich, you know? Isn't that the way that goes?

I bought, among other things, the Footloose album ON VINYL, and a big pink hobo purse made out of sweatshirt fleece, with mesh accents. The purse I am carrying this very day is exactly the same shape and size. I just love me a big purse, always have.