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My First Job At Age 12
By Frederick Corrigan
MY FIRST JOB AT AGE 12
The time was the summer of 1948 and the location was a small town in the Northern White Mountains of New Hampshire. The opportunity to find work when you lived 5 miles from town was pretty slim. However, sometimes if you try, you can get lucky.
A farmer who lived 1 mile up the road needed an extra hand to help with the haying. This means going into the fields in the morning with a pitch fork and turning over the rows of the hay that were mowed the previous day, so that it would dry evenly. After lunch this hay would get raked up into windrows by using a side-delivery rake, pulled by a tractor. The next process was to hitch a hay-loader to the back of the 1934 Ford truck, drive over the windrows and the hay-loader would pick up the hay from the windrows and drop it into the bed of the truck. During this process, it was my job, with pitch-fork in hand, to distribute the incoming hay evenly in layers around the bed of the truck. The farmer was driving the truck and two of his children were walking around the hay as I was spreading it around to pack it into place to make a tight load. We would take this load to the farmer’s barn, throw the hay into the bays and then go back to the field for another load. We were poor farmers so the farmer cut the hay using a mowing machine pulled by a team of horses. We didn’t have a hay-baler so all of the hay was handled loose. It was hot, hard work for a farmer and three children under 12 years old.
When we broke for lunch, the farmer’s wife would have the dining room table set and the food ready at 12 noon. Every one received 1 boiled potato, 1piece of meat, a serving of vegetables, a slice of home-made bread, and a glass of milk (raw whole milk). We always had a piece of home-made pie for desert with a second glass of milk. You didn’t ask for seconds as there weren’t any and you didn’t say I don’t like that, because that was all there was.
The lessons on this job were many; be on time, respect your fellow workers, respect the animals, be cautious as this is dangerous work and be responsible(sometimes I would have to drive this truck with the load of hay back to the barn ,three miles on the main road) .
Did I say that this job was 10 hour days, 6 days a week, for $2.00 a day(.20) an hour and my lunch. This was a lot of money for a 12 year old boy.
I am now 73 and I haven’t forgotten the lessons of honest work.
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The good old days! I enjoyed this piece very much. These are values I respect. Fast food is banned in my home; I try to feed my kids food which you describe. Haven't made them work the fields yet, though.  P.S. I had no idea making hay was such hard work. Give me a cow's life any day.
 | | nick Aug 15, 2009 09:06 | |
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Thanks for your comments, I really appreciate them. And it's nice to know other people realize basic values never go out of style. I'll write more soon on old basic country living. Frederick
I never worked on a farm, but I picked strawberries (after walking a mile to the field). It was hard bending over all the time or crawling on my knees. I was able to eat a few berries as I picked, though. I also had a paper route after school and I never missed a day. I don't miss walking to deliver papers in the hot summers and cold winters. This took place in the late 1960s. When I reached 16 years of age, I could work a "real" job. I got a job working in a fast food restaurant after school. I believe minimum wage was $1.40 an hour. Of course, the cost of things weren't as high back then.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
Thank you for stopping by and for your comments, Angela. The minimum wage when I was 16 was $.75 per hour and when I started work after I finished High School it was $.90 per hour. Gas for my car was $.32 per gallon.
Best to you.
Frederick
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