By Deborah Rafford
Special to the Pioneer Times
There’s something to be said for tradition. While most farmers have gone the way of the mechanical harvester to get their crops in, there are still a couple of growers in the area who still dig them out. Theron “Kimmy” London, of Stacyville, is one of them.
County Tradition – Andrea Drew Patterson dumps another basket of potatoes as she helps in the London potato fields in Stacyville. Theron “Kimmy” London is one of a very few Aroostook potato growers who use hand-picking crews to harvest their crop.
“I have been digging potatoes since 1980,” he said. “I love doing it, and the parents want me to continue so their kids can learn how to work.”
DIGGER MAN — Theron “Kimmy” London lowers the digger bed and unearths the potatoes for picking in his field in Stacyville.
London bags his potatoes and sells them at his house across the street from the field. He started out with an acre of potatoes, and dug them out by hand. It took a couple of years, but he decided to buy a truck and 100 barrels from another farmer. With a 1951 tractor, he now digs three or four acres, and always digs them during Columbus Day weekend. He has Green Mt. potatoes which have a “wicked pile of tops to them.” When the pickers get done with those, the Kennebecs and Shepodys are harvested.
POTATO PICKERS — Workers, from left, Brandon Drew, Will ‘Monti’ Lane, Brenden Lane, Shey Lane, Kendall Lane and David Lane stop for a photo after picking up their sections in London’s potato field in Stacyville.
David Lane, one of the parents in the field, goes along pulling tops for the kids. It makes the picking a lot easier. “I’m here for the kids,” he says, “They need to learn to work somehow”.
Not all the kids dislike picking potatoes. Shey Lane likes picking “for the money,” he exclaimed, with a huge grin. When asked what he got for each barrel, he was quick to say, “A dollar a barrel!” (How many of us can remember getting pennies a barrel?). Kind of makes you want to head out to the fields with your lunch pail and seven layers of clothes, and your extra gloves in case you meet up with a rotten one during the day … or not.
ALL IN THE FAMILY — Danny Lane Jr. stops for a photo with his mom Beverly, and her two grandsons, Brenden and Will “Monti” Lane. This is how traditions stay around. They are passed down from generation to generation.
All during the day, vehicles would slow down as they were going by, probably remembering their time in the fields. Some stopped and took pictures, and one passenger stuck a video camera out of the car and filmed on the way by.
The weather was beautiful the weekend of digging. Some people even stopped by to reminisce about their days in the fields. Carroll, Ritchie, Sue and Linda Ritchie and Mike Buckley stopped to watch the kids pick. Sue even got in on the action.
TAKING A BREAK — Kendra Patterson takes a break while she waits for the “digger man” to come back around. The sun was so bright, she needed shades.
“This is the first time I have ever picked,” she laughed, “I just borrowed one of the kids’ baskets and helped them pick.” Carroll said he used to live in Stacyville, with his uncle, Harold Connors, back in 1951 or ‘52. He remembers picking potatoes for 22 cents a barrel. “We now live in the Monmouth, and Lewiston/Auburn area, and they don’t have potatoes down there,” he added.
THIS IS NOT A RACE — Sarah Lane seems to be lagging behind as Danny Lane races up their section to pick up the potatoes the digger just left for them.
These pickers didn’t pick more than four rows before they got a break because the digger broke down. The tops and rocks clogged the digger bed, and had to be manually cleaned out.
Some of the kids picked standing up and bending over, some were on their knees, some had gloves on, and others were bare handed. One little girl even wore a necklace while she picked. But all seemed to be interested in one thing, getting the potatoes in and getting that paycheck at the end of the weekend.
REMEMBERING — Mike Buckley, Carroll, Ritchie, Sue and Linda Ritchie stopped in the London field in Stacyville to reminisce about “the way it used to be.” Having moved downstate years ago, it was fun to come back and talk about potato harvests of the past.
Long live traditions and, hopefully, these kids will take this experience and use it later in life. As our parents used to say to us, “hard work and a little dirt won’t hurt you.” (We really thought it would back then, but as we grow older, we realize they were right.) Now, we wish there were more farmers like London, to instill that sense of “work ethic” that disappeared with the arrival of those “new fangled contraptions” — known as harvesters.
FIELD FASHION — Lindsay Drew wears a necklace while picking potatoes on her knees at the London farm in Stacyville.
