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Kyle:
A Merciless Slave Driver
By Ben Showman
Our family farms eight hundred acres of corn and
soybeans and raises about four thousand pigs each year.
Kyle has been Dad’s main farmhand for the last
twelve years.
He has become notorious for being a merciless slave
driver. My two
brothers and I have been homeschooled since 1990 and Kyle
has always understood exactly what this means to him:
readily available grunt labor.
It is a rare occasion when either of my brothers or I
can venture out of the house without being quickly put to
work. The three
of us avoid him at all costs.
We even hide when we see his truck coming down the
road. Kyle’s
motto, which he is more than happy to articulate, is “If I
don’t make you do it, then I’ll have to do it.”
When he first started
working for us, he was a scrawny eighteen-year-old kid with
long, straggly hair. Since
he got married, he’s fattened considerably and has taken
to shaving his dopey head.
My brothers and I call him “Skinhead” behind his
back. Every
Christmas, he gets new coveralls, which he wears until they
are in tatters. The
sight of Kyle crossing the farmyard with his clothes waving
like flags and the sun glaring off his bald head is enough
to send us scurrying for cover.
He is constantly thinking of ways to get us to do his
less-than-fun chores. He
has no mercy. If
we complain about working conditions, he just tells us “It
builds character.” By
now, I’m thinking that I have just about enough character.
Kyle enjoys asking annoying rhetorical questions:
“Did we learn anything today?
Are we having fun yet? And how does this affect
me?” I suppose
this is his way of keeping up our morale; but when we are
hauling manure, sorting pigs, or power washing hog feeders
in freezing weather, we really do not appreciate his cruel
humor.
If there is a particularly nasty job around the farm,
he usually makes my little brother, Luke, do it.
Luke isn’t easily motivated, so Kyle takes him by
the shoulder and urges him along, saying, “Luke, keep up
with me. I only
ask that you move as fast as I do.”
Sometimes, he tattles on Luke for being lazy; this
usually results in Luke receiving a lecture from Mom and
then not getting paid. One
of Kyle’s favorite things to do is to make Luke clean out
hog waterers with his bare hands (he could get gloves from
the house, but like I said, he isn’t easily motivated).
You wouldn’t think that Luke would mind this,
considering that he pets toads and salamanders; but he hates
that job and Kyle knows it.
A prime example of Kyle’s shrewdness in delegating his work took place
on
Friday, February 4, 2000
. Dad sold thirty thousand
bushels of corn, and for two days, trucks had been roaring
by our house on their way to market.
Luke and I started to worry, remembering the hottest
week last year, which we spent loading several semi’s full
of soybeans, practically by hand (when the amount of grain
in a bin gets below a certain level, it becomes necessary to
manually shovel the remainder of the contents into holes in
the center of the bin).
We knew it wouldn’t be long before Kyle would be
calling us to say, “It’s time to scoop corn.”
Those were words that we dreaded to hear.
We were just finishing lunch when the call came.
Kyle had the elevator lady call Mom and tell her to
tell us that a semi was half an
hour away and the driver would need someone to start
the grain auger for him (an auger is an implement that is
used to transfer grain).
Little did I know that this was all part of Kyle’s
scheme to get us in the bin and scooping corn.
When the truck arrived, I didn’t even bother to
change into grubby clothes.
Instead, I just put on a pair of boots and jogged out
to see what the deal was.
I looked in the bin, and to my surprise, there was
hardly any corn left in the twenty-four thousand-bushel
structure. Knowing
that an afternoon of corn scooping was unavoidable, I told
the trucker, “Looks like we’re going to be scooping.
I’ll go back to the house and get my little
brother.”
“No hurry,” the driver muttered.
After a brief dispute over
whether scooping was necessary, I was able to get Luke to
put on some farm clothes and follow me out to the bin.
We wasted no time in getting started.
Soon we had a good system going: I would scoop the
bulk of the corn into one of three openings in the floor,
then Luke would sweep up what I left behind.
This worked quite well, and before we knew it, the
semi was loaded and on its way.
I climbed out of the bin and removed my soggy, filthy
dust mask. “That
wasn’t so bad,” I thought.
But just when we were sure that we were done for the
day, Kyle showed up in his grungy green pickup.
“I’ve got another truck
coming, so don’t go running off,” Kyle said smugly.
The second semi pulled up to the auger as Luke and I
climbed back into the bin.
Already tired and aching, we reluctantly resumed our
tedious system of scooping and sweeping.
Kyle was content to watch, as we struggled to keep
pace with the big auger.
Kyle is different things to different
people. To my
dad, he is a valued employee; to me, he is someone to be
avoided when I am busy recreating.
His greatest significance in my life is probably his
role in my education. Working
alongside him, I have learned how to do almost every kind of
farm work, from running a backhoe to sorting hogs.
I have probably learned more useful skills from this
slave driver than I will ever learn in any classroom.
As a result of his influence, I am not afraid to get
a little gritty or sweaty in the line of duty.
I would rather spend a day scraping hog manure off a
concrete floor than waste my time messing around in town.
While I am writing this, I can look out the window,
and see Kyle pulling the auger down the road.
I suspect that there is more corn to scoop, so I
better act busy.
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