Cukes

Back in the '70s, a strong good friend invited me to take over the fecundity of a large cucumber field. It was mid-summer and the cukes were reproducing like crazy. I said ok.

The deal was to pick the cucumbers while they were at a certain small size and sell them to the pickle people.

Every morning at dawn I would make my rounds to pick up my crew. Have you ever tried to round up hippies? Like herding cats. We would eventually get to the field and begin the stooping hours of moving aside the leaves to pick those green phalluses from their Adamic Eden. Some of the women would start picking topless as an aid to us men for zen and yogic attentional training.

At the end of the picking day, the cukes were hauled in an old converted truck bed trailer to Irene, South Dakota and poured into a size sorter. The little ones got the biggest buck bang per pound. Meanwhile those cukes were steadily growing.

And so the summer progressed with hot humid days and afternoon rain storms and double rainbows, the rich smell of earth, laughing camaraderie, and stoop-muscled backs.