Uphill both ways? When I was a kid...
2004-07-30, 3:13 p.m.

When I had to think about it, I realized that in terms of weirdness, I peaked early. Weetabix wanted to know the "weirdest thing you've ever done for cash."

My answer? Interfered with the sex life of corn.

At the age of fourteen, I wanted a summer job, for to make the spending coin. In the small Iowa town where I grew up, opportunities were limited, and mostly agricultural. There was Bean-walking; weeding bean fields, and especially removing the "volunteer" corn that would grow up in the field. Baling hay, of course, but it was mostly boys who got those jobs. And there was detasseling. "Detasseling is the process of removing the top part of a corn plant, the tassel, so that the plant cannot pollinate itself. The task of pollination is done by another type of corn grown for that sole purpose. The result is a superior breed of corn that has genetic characteristics of both the pollinating and detasseled corn plants."

It's hard to describe the discomfort levels you can reach with this low-paying, strenuous job.

You start out early (around 4 or 5) in the morning, riding a school bus to some remote field. Summer mornings are chilly in Southeastern Iowa. And the fields are muddy from rain or irrigation. But as the day wears on, it can get incredibly hot and humid out there, and the mud dries to a hard and heavy crust on your pantlegs. But if you know what you are doing, you bear the heat inside your detasseling clothes, and resist the urge to strip down.

You wouldn't dream of tackeling this job without jeans, a long-sleeved shirt buttoned to the neck, a hat, and glasses or sunglasses. In addition, you probably have a bandana tied around your face, and gloves, tape, or more bandanas around your hands, to protect them from the corn. Why would anyone wear all that out in the sun, in an Iowa August? Two words: Corn Rash.

Corn rash occurs when you walk through the rows and the corn leaves scrape up against any uncovered piece of skin. Arms, legs, neck even your cheeks or forehead.

The leaves make tiny cuts in your skin. These cuts don't bleed, they're more like lesions that scab up. When this happens, it is like the worst sunburn you ever had, multiplied by chicken pox, plus 10,000 boxes of itching powder. Your skin is irritated beyond belief, and you itch and squirm and burn in agony.

So you are out there, in a steaming cornfield that you are sure is hell itself. Wading through the thick Iowa mud, up and down rows a mile and a half long. Through water holes--stinking swamps full of rotted corn plants and chemical fertilizers. Walking on an angle, on the sides of your feet, because corn doesn't grow straight up, you know.

And all this time, your arms are over your head, up where those tassels are, at the top of the stalks. Pulling those goddamned tassels. In a day's work, you can pull anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 tassels. And they don't come away easy. They take a good, stiff tug--every damn one of them. That's what you're out here to do, and you'd by god better do a good job. Checkers are following you--pulling the tassels you missed. And if you missed enough, you're fired.

God, how I loved getting fired.