Ever since I was little I have been going to my grandparents’ farm to help out with harvesting their sweet corn. I can remember getting up early in the morning to go out to the sweet corn fields and handpick the corn and bag it. We would then get the bags and dump them into a pile, sit around it and start shucking. This process took the whole day to complete. Once we had shucked for a while we split so some of my family could start to wash, cut, and boil the corn so we can bag and store it. I would usually get stuck stirring the corn in a cold room so it could cool enough to bag and freeze. As a kid, I was annoyed and wanted to do literally anything else but my parents would always force me to help. While I dreaded those trips to the farm as a kid, I grew to love them. This tradition taught me to work hard even when I did not like the work and helped me spend time and connect with my family. I have learned that my papa has been shucking corn since he was a kid as did his parents, and the struggles both my grandparents had in the past like when they had to shuck all by themselves. After a lot of summers of shucking, I can say that this tradition connects to my identity of working hard.

– Alexander Ornes

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