Corn Harvesting and Hogtying (a Shannon O'Day Story)

Corn Harvesting and Hogtying
(A Shannon O’Day Story)




Chapter One
Cantina’s High School


“You are most unhappy when your life is empty,” Shannon O’Day told his daughter Cantina O’Day, picking her up from her High School in March, of 1965 (three months before school would let out for the summer season).
“You got to keep yourself busy,” he pressed this point, “you live from moment to moment, and you should never have any recollection of the previous moment, this way you never have to concentrate or dread tomorrow, it’s all one flash, and one fiesta—!”
But Cantina knew that was the way her dad lived, and for her it just wouldn’t do, nor last. But she smiled at his philosophy it was really meant to smooth her troubled mind about her going with him for the several months, while out on school vacation, and her uncle Gus was visiting down in North Carolina.
She was the kind of like her mother, Gertrude, if she didn’t look out the window to see what or who was coming down the road, or look at what she might have to bear in life, it would become for her unbearable, life postponed, and this in itself would create to a great extent, anxiety.
She knew her father wouldn’t even budge from those cornfields he loved so very much while drinking in the late springs and summers, that an atom bomb wouldn’t chase him away, or even an attack by bees in all directions, yet he was her hero, who fought in the Great War, and fought while in those foxholes they called trenches, and was decorated, while in Europe, by a French General.
She remembered what her mother told her that when Shannon reached home in 1919, there was no triumphant hooting for him, yet he wanted to believe that there were things worth dying for in life, fighting and dying for in life. For at least one thing—even if it wasn’t the real reason—was that Shannon O’Day, himself never thought or believed of naming it anything other than what it was because to him, to Shannon O’Day, it was nameless anyhow, it was that someday he’d have a daughter, and he didn’t want her to have to worry about a dotted world outside the boundaries of America the beautiful—soldiers and sailors and marines pushing their way with hands and weapons onto her sacred soil and coming down the highway standing on the corners waiting to kill Americans like hogs waiting for the slaughter—like rooting hogs, ready to enslave America.
During some of his trying times, he never once went on relief, leaving the bureaucratic Government one less recipient.
So he came to Washington High School, off Rice Street, in ST. Paul Friday afternoon to pick up his daughter, that he Shannon O’Day, knowing that he would have her for the rest of spring, the entire summer and until after harvest time, and then she’d be heading back to school (March through September, to about October 1), about seven months, through the planting season and harvesting time of his brother’s cornfields, outside of the city, where Gus and his wife took care of Cantina, but because Gus’ wife’s mother was ill down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Gus and she were going down there to take care of her, she was 92-years old.
Shannon would do his farming along with his friend Otis Wilde Mather, although Shannon didn’t tell Gus about Otis being with him during some of the planting and harvesting time (the rest of the time Otis, would be gone attending to his businesses in Ozark, Alabama, and a Meat market, he owned on Jackson Street in St. Paul) Gus never like him, called him a ‘Sneaky and cagey nigger.”

Cantina was thirteen-years old at the time.

That was the situation when he arrived at the school that Friday afternoon, to pick up his daughter. There was apprehension in it too of course, since, for Shannon, to raise a daughter with his drinking condition, and it was Gertrude’s normal concern whenever he took her, even for a day, now for seven months, but she insisted she be with her father on the familiar farm, for Gertrude had to remain close to where she worked, her and Shannon owning a house on Albemarle Street, and working downtown by the Mississippi River at ‘Gillette’, assembly line work.
But now, even if she had changed her mind, it was really too late, the last breathe on the issue had been discharged.



Chapter Two
The Planting


(March) The morning was cold; it was the 10th of March, Shannon had not drank for ten-days, and was already seated at the kitchen table, with Otis, when Cantina came in, down from her second story bedroom, looked out the window, and joined her father, he was leaning back reading the newspaper, as Cantina, clutching her shawl, like her mother often did, said in a waking up manner,
“What are you going to do today when I head off for school?”
“I’m going to start planting,” said Shannon.
“Don’t you think it’s a little early?” she commented.
“Why it’s the tenth of the month, and I’m not waiting for no train.” He said with a chuckle.
“I mean paw, is the ground warm enough?” asked Cantina.
“Warm enough, I don’t know, the worms are still in the ground, they are warm I’d think, when they get cold they’ll show their heads, and that’s good enough for me,” and he laughed again pouring down his coffee, and had a little whisky in it he had hidden, not even told Otis about the pint he kept in the back water where one flushed the toilet.
“All right,” she said, and Shannon remarked, “Get on out of here and go onto school, like you’re suppose to do.” And she did.

It was that the ground was 45F, not the normal required 50 to 55 or 60, for best planting weather, and thus, Otis and Shannon took the direct seeding and planted in the cold soil, and they planted between six to eight inches apart, not the normal eight to twelve for corn stacks to grow among each other, he wanted to get a big harvest, and early planting. And he planted two inches deep, instead of the normal one inch, thinking he’d not let the crows have a feast, and his rows were 20 to 25 inches apart, not the normal 30 to 36 inches, and he had blocks of 8 rows, not four, and it was a wet spring, the soil was drenched, and he needed to drain some of it, but felt no need to, this would save Gus a big water bill, and didn’t. And accordingly, the planting was done, the way his drinking was done, fast and careless.
Then, exactly like Shannon, the other one, Otis, said, “We aint got a thing to do but wait now I reckon, lets git on to doin’ some serious drunkin’?”
Without hesitation, and forgetting his pledge to his wife, he simple said, “Okay, but damn, we’ll be sure not to tell Gertrude, or my daughter, I’ll sleep it off before she comes back from school. Go-on now and bring in that jug of corn whisky, I know you got it hidden someplace.”
Shannon knew Otis had some whisky hidden, and Otis knew Shannon was drinking on the side that he was not as serious to sobriety as he proclaimed to be, but didn’t say anything to Shannon he knew, he just figured it was timing before he’d bring up the subject, and the jug, and therefore, he moved lickety-split like to the loft of the barn where he hid the jug under some hay, and brought that jug in, pulled the cork, and with one hand like a pro, laying it against his cheek, and on his shoulder, he gulped down a big mouthful of that corn whisky like it was Coca-Cola, and Shannon, likewise.



Chapter Three
Watering & Harvesting

As the weeks passed, Cantina would have to remind her pa to water the fields, and he’d do so when she’d go off to school, and during the summer, early summer, she noticed the corn was not growing well. And she watched her papa watering; he did it too shallow, “Paw” she said, “you got to soak the soil thoroughly! And be careful not to damage the plants while cultivating!”

“Cultivating, what is that?” asked Shannon, but Cantina didn’t hear him, she was long gone by the time he got the last syllable out.

As the corn stocks got bigger (knee high), Cantina noticed it was starting to look like a jungle in the cornfields, “Paw,” she said (a little inquisitively), “don’t you remember when you were drinking, there was room for you to put your bottle down, lay back, spread your feet out, while drinking in the cornfields, now if you were drinking today, how would you do it, the cornfields look like the Amazon?”
“Hum…mm, what is your suggestion my dear?” he asked.
“Well, by planting early, you avoided the warm problem somewhat, but now the corn is not growing fast enough you planted it too deep, if you can harvest early, like in August, and not September or October, you will be ahead. You need to use more insecticide.”
“No, I haven’t used any yet, not well for the bones,” said Shannon.
“Oh my gosh,” she murmured, “You should every several days, and when it gets real hot—like it’s starting to get—we’re going to have real big problems.”
It was soon after this that the corn started to silk, and the weather got blazingly hot, and worms were starting to show up, and there was leaf rust (disease on the corn), and there was tumor like growth on the leaves.
During all this, Otis and Shannon were drinking during the early afternoons, sleeping the late afternoons away, as Cantina went to visit her friends and mother. By the time she arrived back, Shannon had a 4:00 p.m., there was usually dinner on the table for her, and Shannon would be looking, or at least acting, all sobered up.

At the dinner table this one evening, she asked, as often she did, “How’s the cornfields?”
“Fine,” he replied.
“Have you done any weeding yet?”
“Weeding,” he repeated, “am I suppose to do weeding too?”
“Oh paw, frequent weeding, that is cultivation, you got to do that before you get a problem, you cultivate just deep enough to cut the weeds off below the surface of the soil. You got to be careful so you don’t damage the plants.”
“Well dear, your old paw knows a lot, but not everything about this farming life.”
“Yaw I know paw, I think Gus knew also, he wrote me, he asked if his field is a disaster yet or not.”
“You’re kidding me, my own brother said that?”
“And I know you’ve been drinking and I won’t tell mom or Gus, because she will take me away from you.”
“I suppose she might, if she knew, but I thought I was being pretty clandestine, like that Charlie Chan fellow, you know, that detective from Hong Kong.”
“Yes, I seen the movie paw, that’s pretty old fashion thought, it’s Perry Mason, nowadays.”
“Yaw, I watch him too, but the best of them all is that private eye called, Sherlock somebody…!”
“Why we are talking like this, when it is a serious matter, you got to take care of the farm Paw, you promised Gus.”
“But I’m doing the best I can, really I am.”
She looked at her paw, and she just couldn’t help but smile, he really felt he was, even if he wasn’t, “I know you are paw, I just wanted to remind you of your promise, sometimes you forget.”

Cantina went out to look at the jungle of corn, it was all of that and worse, worms were starting to mature and eating the corn, and much of it was diseased, and you couldn’t see five feet beyond the first row of corn, and the ground was mushy, and it was late July. The ears were full and milky.
“Pop,” she said as she ran into the kitchen, “I think we can save half, or near half the harvest if we harvest now, sorry about the rest, but it’s bad.”

Gus was getting abut five bushels of corn per acre, using about 9000-gallons of water per acre. And planted 400-acres, thus, getting, 2000 bushels of corn; Shannon got 750-bushels, used about 1000-gallons of water, per acre, and none in August or September, normally high water volume months, but somehow, everyone thought under the circumstances, he did a fair job. And everyone felt, he was drinking, and many of the neighbors said he was for sure they saw him and Otis drunk and laughing in the cornfields as if they were trying to hogtie each other, but since no one got killed in the process, Gertrude and Gus, didn’t say a word concerning the matter, to save Cantina’s respect for her father, they wanted her to see him as she always saw him, her hero, because other than drinking, he had good values, so they had just crossed their fingers, and thanked the Good Lord everything turned out rosy, somewhat.


6-7-2009. . No: 411