Of all the ways I could have spent the summer after my freshman year, working on a farm would not have been my top choice. Or even one of my top ten. But somehow I had still allowed myself to be signed up for a summer interning on the Wheeler Farm in Nebraska.
Itll be good for you, my dad grunted. I did it myself for a summer, when I was your age. Hard work builds character.
Dad, you grew up out there! Ive spent my whole life in New Jersey. I dont have the right life skills for a farm. Ill probably get run over by a tractor or trampled by a buffalo or something.
And yet I couldnt think of any suitably character-building alternatives, and the next day he presented me with a plane ticket for the journey to Central Nebraska Airport. That kind of dick move was typical of my dad, who had always seemed bewildered by me, his short, scrawny son. My dad had been a high school hockey star, 63 and 250 pounds, and here I was, a year into high school and still a full foot shorter than him. I also wasnt athletic; I had always preferred an afternoon in front of the TV to one spent running around a field getting concussed. I guess I took after my mom, who was barely over five feet tall and looked like she might blow away in a strong wind. The most I had ever weighed was 101 pounds, after eating a big meal and drinking a lot of water.
Itll be good for you, my dad grunted. I did it myself for a summer, when I was your age. Hard work builds character.
Dad, you grew up out there! Ive spent my whole life in New Jersey. I dont have the right life skills for a farm. Ill probably get run over by a tractor or trampled by a buffalo or something.
And yet I couldnt think of any suitably character-building alternatives, and the next day he presented me with a plane ticket for the journey to Central Nebraska Airport. That kind of dick move was typical of my dad, who had always seemed bewildered by me, his short, scrawny son. My dad had been a high school hockey star, 63 and 250 pounds, and here I was, a year into high school and still a full foot shorter than him. I also wasnt athletic; I had always preferred an afternoon in front of the TV to one spent running around a field getting concussed. I guess I took after my mom, who was barely over five feet tall and looked like she might blow away in a strong wind. The most I had ever weighed was 101 pounds, after eating a big meal and drinking a lot of water.