Growing up, my best friend in the whole world was a kid named Corey Vaughan. When we first met in the third grade, all I knew of Corey was that he was the kid who had been stepped on by a horse (yeah, that’s a story) and lived on a cattle ranch. Little did I know that the kid with the ranch would be my best friend through grade school and easily one of the best friends in my life.
Another thing I didn’t know at that time was the major side-effect of being best friends with a farm kid: he is always doing farm work. Because Corey always had things to do on his dad’s ranch, the only way to consistently hang out with him was to go over to his house and help out with the chores. So we spent the summers herding cows, moving fence posts, “painting fences” (I put that in quotes because seven years later that fence still isn’t painted). Each summer, as we got older, our chores got more intensive. We did things such as planting fields, machinery maintenance, and buying/selling materials. That’s how I got myself into working on a ranch.
I got two things from that farm experience as a child. First was one of the most powerful friendships I could ever imagine. Working that hard, for that long one of two things will happen. People will either grow to despise each other and get irritated or they will bond to the point that one person is simply an extension of the other. Obviously, the latter happened with Corey and I.
When I moved from Kansas to Washington State my freshman year of high school Corey and I didn’t really talk much. Neither one of us were the type to talk on the phone or text. Nobody writes letters anymore (sadly) and flying halfway across the country for a play date just wasn’t going to happen. Despite the fact we talked maybe four times in the four years before I went back after my senior year when I stepped off the plane we started right back where we left off like we’d never been apart.
Unfortunately, when I went back the summer after my senior year it wasn’t for a play date. I needed a job to save money for college and jobs weren’t readily available in Yakima at the time so I called in a favor with Corey’s dad and asked if he’d hire me on for the six weeks of summer I had left.
So, I spent those six weeks working 7 days a week, 12-14 hours at a time in triple digit temperatures and high humidity. That my friend, will make you a man. And for that very reason, I truly believe that teenage males in America should have to serve a mandatory summer on a cattle ranch or other agricultural facility.
Okay, okay. Maybe mandatory service is a little over the top, but I mean this dead seriously when I say working a on a cattle ranch during my childhood and that summer did more for me than any other job – save for military service maybe – could have ever accomplished. All that work improved my work ethic, respect for time, and money, as well as ability to work both independently and as a team.
When I came back home from my summer on the farm I was a different person. I had a newfound respect for the money in my pocket because believe me; every penny of it was hard-earned. I also returned with a mentality that there is always something to do – even if you’re just grabbing a broom and cleaning up. And I knew what real work was. Not to mention I came back with 20lbs of extra muscle and was in the best physical shape of my life!
There is no way that I would want to do that job for the rest of my life. I have the utmost respect for Corey and all the other people in the world who make a living from farming. It’s the country’s third most dangerous job (second only to logging and Alaskan crab fishing) and those people earn every single dollar that goes into their bank account. It takes a special person to want to do that. I… am not that person.
Experiencing it however will definitely benefit me in my chosen career path and I truly believe that it can help anyone in any career field. Parents, if you have the chance – send your kids to a farm for a summer! They may hate it, but they’ll know what real work is after that.
So here’s my shout-out to all the farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers in the country. My hat is off to you gentlemen and ladies because I know how hard your job is and I respect that you do it every day of your life to put food on our tables. Cheers!
For everyone else out there, next time you drive by an orchard, farm, or ranch; just remember how hard those people are working today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and weekends, and on holidays. Farm work never stops and neither do that. Give them some thanks and respect because they definitely deserve it.
-Blessings,
Connor
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