Summer Jobs

Senior photo shoots. 

That time of year again. I have quite a few to do this summer. I love doing these sessions. The seniors I've worked with love, love, love being models. Even the guys. They're not afraid to get more physical in their poses - climbing high, hanging from things, hamming it up for the lens.

We get to have some fun.

And the girls love being the focal point. Each one is beautiful, with gorgeous smiles. They're willing to be a little dramatic if needed. I simply love this part of my work.

~~~~~~~~~~

So the Man and I went out last night to scout out some new backgrounds and textures. We were driving through my old stomping grounds. I worked on a farm for three summers when I was in high school. It was the only job Other Sissy and I could find since neither of us was sixteen at the time. We dragged along our three neighbors and the five of us would get up at o'dark thirty to go work all day for pennies. 

At the time we thought we were making good money.

Farm work is hard work. It's hot and sweaty and grimy. There are lots of bugs around. Huge, green, thousand-leg types of bugs - also known as tobacco worms.The migrant workers used to put them in the baskets filled with tobacco leaves and when we would grab the leaves to string them on the lathes, these huge green tobacco worms would be there, crawling and leaving slime all over the place. 

Blech.

Sometimes the migrant workers would drop the worms onto our heads. They would work way up in the rafters of the barn, hanging lathes full of tobacco leaves. They'd drop a worm once or twice a day and laugh as we'd shriek. It only took one worm to land on one girl's head and we were all wearing our hard hats. We hated wearing them - it was so hot. But it was better than having a worm land on your head.

We had to put layers and layers of strong fabric tape on our fingers. This protected them from the needles on the sewing machines we were using. Our fingers would get pretty close to the needles as we fed the leaves into the machine. The tape saved many fingers from being pierced by a needle. It would take forever to peel that tape off at lunch. But we had to do it so we could eat. By lunch our fingers would be black with grime. 

Blech. Again.

But I'll tell you what - peanut butter and jelly never tasted so good. Working hard builds your appetite. We would get a half hour for lunch and then it was back to the fields or the barns, depending on where we were working. 

By the time the day ended, we were beat. As soon as we got home, we would all change into our bathing suits and jump into our neighbor's pool to cool off. Dinner, a few games of flashlight tag, and then bed. And we'd start all over again the next day.

~~~~~~~~~~

This is the first summer that both my children have {almost} full-time jobs. Office jobs.

Bah.

They don't know what work is. But I bet they'll have stories to tell their kids. We used to have go into the office. None of this telecommuting for us. But we only paid $3.50/gallon for gas. Can you believe how cheap it was back then?

It's all relative I guess.

As hard as those summers were, I wouldn't trade my farm experiences for anything. 

Simpler job, simpler time. 

Those were the days.