Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories. With Marysville and Union County celebrating Bicentennial anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, respectively, these articles help depict what life was like in those early years.
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It was the summer of 1944 or 1945, when I saw an ad in the Marysville Tribune looking for boys to detassel corn. The ad said the work would last two or three weeks. I guess I was between summer jobs, or between paper routes, and I really needed money. So I applied for the job and got it. I didn’t know what detasseling corn was, but it was a chance to improve my deteriorating financial situation.
On the first day, all of us boys showed up at the post office at 7 a.m., where we were into crews and loaded onto a flatbed truck. Then we were driven to the fields.
When my crew jumped from the truck, a man showed us how to do the job. He explained that each of us would be assigned to a row of corn. We would walk down that row, reach up high and remove the tassel from each corn stock. When we got to the end of the row, each of us would be assigned to a new row, and we would continue in the opposite direction. That sounded easy enough.
There were some really heavy dews that summer, and the morning corn leaves were covered with it. By the time we walked 10 yards or so, our clothes were soaking wet. And the day was just getting started.
By the time we reached the end of that first row, our backs were aching, especially us younger boys who weren’t tall enough to reach some of the tassels. Sometimes we had to reach as high as we could, and then bend the cornstalk before grabbing the tassel. Oh man, what had I gotten myself into?
To make matters worse, every now and then when we grabbed a tassel, it was full of tiny bugs, which our boss called, “corn lice,” and we ended up with a handful of squashed bugs. That was nasty.
During the afternoon, all of the dew was gone, and our clothes dried out. But then the sun beat down on us, and you wouldn’t believe how hot it was. Even when there was a nice breeze, we couldn’t feel it because we were surrounded by all that corn. By the end of the first day, we were a sorry bunch of kids, but our boss told us about a “detasseling machine” we might get the next day.
He said that instead of walking between corn rows, we would ride on the machine’s elevated platform and remove the tassels, which would be maybe waist high. There would be no walking, no soggy wet clothes, and no sore backs.
When we got to the field the next morning, one of those machines was sitting in the barnyard. Wow, this would be great. But our crew didn’t get that machine. They had hired a bunch of girls, and they gave the machine to them. Can you believe that? They were brand new workers, and we had seniority. Yet they gave the detasseling machine to those girls. It just didn’t seem fair.
But something else happened that day, and it put a new slant on everything. A new boy was added to our crew. His name was Richard Gerrard, but everyone called him by his nickname, “Bone.” He was three years older than me.
When we started our second or third row, Bone tried to get us all to sing as we worked, but none of us were interested in that. We were in no mood to sing. So Bone started singing by himself. It didn’t take long until one or two boys joined him, then another, and another. And before long, we all were singing.
We sang songs that everyone knew, like “I’ve Been Working On The Railroad.” We really belted them out.
Then Bone began singing songs that none of us had ever heard before. I think he had learned them at Boy Scout Camp. Over the next few days, all of us learned those songs. My favorite was a song about a girl named “Catalina Magdalena Whoopensteina Walleneina Hogan Logen Bogen.” It was the funniest song all of us had ever heard.
And so it went for the next two or three weeks. Those cornfields echoed with songs like that, and with kids laughing. Bone had managed to transform our daily drudgery into something that was actually fun. I doubt if I will ever again have to detassel corn. But if I do, I want to be on Bone Gerrard’s crew.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at bill@davidwboyd.com