Pioneer readers recall potato harvests past – Oh yes, I remember …

By Gaila Mailman
Special to the Pioneer Times
    I remember the cold and the potato dirt and dust that reached through our clothing into every pore.
    I remember getting up in the morning feeling as though I’d never gone to bed, stumbling down the narrow stairs to the warmth of the Ashley heater in the living room from my bed under the eaves.
    I remember seeing my mother working at the old home comfort cookstove, preparing for yet another day in the field.
    I remember her staying up half the night to bake fresh apple pies and make new sour mustard pickles, which we took into the fields to supplement our thick sandwiches.
    Then came the ride in Uncle Bill’s station wagon with his large family and the six of us all crowded in, and uncle driving ten or fifteen miles to the field with his window open – we nearly froze!
    As we arrived at the field, we’d make a pit stop so that when the digger came, we’d be ready to pick. Oh, how we dreaded, yet looked for those first few rows till we got into the swing of things for that day!
    Then how our hands flew and how we dreamed of all that money (25 cents a barrel – no less!) to buy our new winter wardrobe, and especially did we wait upon the longed for day of shopping for all that bounty! Such dreams!
    Then, morning break would roll around and we’d rest a bit, and a few hours later, came lunch break with mom’s sandwiches and pickles and pie – delicious!
    And finally, the happiest time of day when Ruthie (Peabody) would come to the field for our mid-afternoon break with coffee and hot chocolate and doughnuts or molasses cookies on the back of Harold’s old truck. Yummy! Those treats probably tasted better to our tired souls than anything before or since! Such kindness and such a pick-me-up to keep our little bodies going for a few more hours till quitting time!
    Thank you Ruthie! Thank you Harold!
    Were those hard times? You bet they were! Were lessons learned and character built? You can count on it! Do our children need more of these today? You betcha!
    Thank God for farmers. Thank God for Aroostook County – God’s country!