Summer vacation meant getting up at sunrise, choking down a hurried breakfast, pulling on dirty work clothes, and slogging through thousands of acres of wheat with Momma, Pam, Marie, Sally and Matt, pulling the rye, shoving the tall, sticky plants into sacks we tied to our belts or overall straps, and, when the sacks were full, carrying them to the edge of the field and dumping them into a huge pile—which we would later have to go back, pick up, and haul to a dump somewhere.
And every fall, when we got our paychecks, we went through the little ritual.
