The Princeville Telephone
"Through My Kitchen Window"
by Vickie Callahan
12/16/89

After the harvest come the gleaners.  We're the gleaners.  As a traditional OIF (One Income Family), we are always looking for ways to cut a few financial corners.  We bought 4 feeder pigs in September, and now we glean the cornfields to help defray our feeding costs.  This is no minor undertaking.

It's a family affair.  We pile into the truck with a pitcher of tea and head for the field.  Experience has taught us that the corners are best, so we choose a corner of a field and pile out of the truck.  Let the gleaning begin!

Kevin Michael just turned 5, so my interaction with him during this process goes something like, "Get busy."  "Kevin Michael, get out of the truck."  "Don't walk on the corn, Kevin Michael."  "No, we're not finished yet."  "Kevin Michael, where are you?"

Lacey is 8 years old and has better learned the work ethic.  She also appreciates receiving praise for her efforts, so we hear, "I've found 27!"  "I've found 42!"  "I've found 61!"  And I dutifully respond each time, "That's great, Lacey."

My husband, Kevin, has the eyes of a hawk with binoculars, so he beats us all hands-down when it comes to quantity.

I believe, though, that I take the greatest imagination to the field.  I would far prefer to be cross-stitching or polishing my nails, so to endure this trial I provide my own entertainment. I begin with Biblical reflections and assign some kinship between Ruth, a gleaner, and myself.  This is usually interrupted by my own grouchiness as I shout at an intruder, "Get out of my row!"  So much for kinship with Ruth--she would have never done that.  My thoughts turn to the pigs (no, I claim no kinship with the pigs) and how they will devour in 15 minutes what it has taken our family an hour to gather.  This is neither a productive nor a healthy line of thought at that particular moment, so I, instead, begin composing letters in my mind to friends and family back home.  This is good for about an hour.

Eventually, we've done all the gleaning that a family can stand in one day, and that's when I truly get active, for when Kevin shouts, "Let's go," my never-say-die personality takes over.  I begin with my "cornfield ballet".  Where I was previously methodically and meticulously plodding down the row, I am now on my toes flitting from one promising pile of husks to another, as the family slowly follows in the truck.  When the truck engine races and they pick up the pace, I, of necessity, switch from my graceful ballet to the "tassel tap-dance".  I'm stomping all over those husk piles now, just certain there's one more ear to claim as mine.  Kevin is shouting out the window of the truck, "Come on, Glean Queen."  "Get in the truck, my little meadow muffin."

My legs have had it.  My neck is in what I'm certain is a permanent downward curve, and I've exhausted my choreographic imagination.  Resignedly, I stop and climb into the truck.

Let's go feed the pigs.

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