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Already awake in anticipation, Jake heard his mom quietly call his name from the doorway. “OK,” he answered in a voice still gravelly from sleep. Feet on the floor, Jake stretched his lanky 14 year old frame, flipped the light switch to illuminate the 4 a.m. darkness and pulled on a pair of jeans.

Within short order he had donned socks, shoes, a long sleeved shirt, and tied a bandanna around his neck. On his way out the door he grabbed a pair of work gloves and a wide brimmed hat.

This was the first day of Jake’s first summer job and he was a little nervous. He jumped in the car with his older brother Tom. Their mom got behind the wheel and drove them to the schoolyard where they joined 20 other teenagers waiting for the big yellow bus that would take them to the cornfields.

Once the bus deposited the boys and they were each assigned their own rows in the cornfield, the work began. As Jake hesitated, Tom teasingly pulled Jake’s hat down over his younger brother’s eyes, said “Remember what I told you and you’ll do fine,” and strode off to start his day.

Jake pushed his hat back, entered the first row and felt his feet sink a little into the muddy soil. The row looked like an endless alley flanked on either side by a giant thicket of broad green leaves. Each corn stalk was topped with a long tassel that waved in the early morning breeze. His job was to detassel the corn.

The tassel is the pollen producing top part of the corn plant. The farmers had purposely planted several rows of one type of corn next to several rows of another variety. One type can pollinate the other and that produces a new corn seed that combines the qualities of both varieties. This combination is called a hybrid and the resulting corn seed produces healthier crops that yield more corn.

However, you have to prevent the first variety of corn from pollinating itself and that means removing the tassel from that corn. In a normal growing season, tassels usually appear in July. Kids from 12 on up through college age have about 20 days to detassel the corn and earn some money for the next school year.

Jake reached over his head and grabbed the top of the first corn stalk in his gloved hand, pulled it towards him and yanked off the tassel. Pelted by showers of dewdrops from the wet leaves, he was soaked by the time he had detasseled another 8 plants.

The wet and chill of early morning soon gave way as Jake got into the rhythm of the work. By 10:00 a.m. steam was rising from the field and Jake had completed 5 rows. It looked to him like each row was about a half mile long. He spent the next two hours trying to figure out how many corn plants made up a row. When he met up with Tom at noon for a short lunch break they reckoned there were somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 corn stalks per row! No wonder Jake’s arms and back were aching.

When they had scarfed down their homemade sandwiches, they set back to work. Their soaked clothing had dried as the sun warmed the air, but now in the afternoon heat, their shirts were sticking to their backs and perspiration was dripping down their necks. Still, none of them took a stitch of clothing off. Veteran detasselers had warned the rookies about the rash caused by corn leaves brushing against bare skin. Having learned about corn rash the hard way, Tom’s friend Chris described the experience, “It’s worse than the worst sunburn you can imagine and it takes weeks to heal!”

Around 3:00 p.m. the crew started making their way out of the muddy corn alleys towards the bus. Taking their hats off, they wiped their hot faces with their bandanas and climbed aboard in exhausted silence. Jake had detasseled about 30,000 plants while he had trudged the 5 miles that represented 10 rows of corn! A little concerned because he knew the average was 15 rows a day, Jake was reassured when Tom congratulated him on a good first day and told him not to worry. “By the end of the season you’ll be up to 20 rows a day,” he said confidently.

Their mother greeted the exhausted boys with a knowing smile and told them to just drop their clothes out front. She would hose the mud off before putting the garments in the washing machine.

Hunger drove the two boys to the dinner table where they practically inhaled supper. They wearily climbed the stairs to their rooms and flopped down on their beds. Mom followed and gave each of her sons a back rub to ease their aching muscles. Jake smiled to himself. This was a good and satisfying kind of tired. When he finally closed his eyes, all he saw was miles and miles of corn tassels waving in the breeze.