Almost six years ago, I proudly stepped away from college with a crisp, fresh college degree. I was certified educated, ready to take on the world. Almost six years ago, I ended up working on a community farm, growing squash, killing bugs, and watching over the community service volunteers. Great use of my fine arts degree.

The farm was fairly small, about 150 by 250 feet. It had sections of squash, plots of peppers, innumerable baby tomatoes, even a row of grapes that never, ever grew.  My partners in crime and grime were Lou, Geoff, and my brother, Sam. To help us tend to the crops we had a league of volunteers. They came in all shapes and sizes; high school students trying to earn summer credits, juvies doing community service in lieu of jail time, and recovering cokeheads from halfway houses. Our worst volunteers were teenagers.

Teenagers are the Worst

I could write an entire doctoral thesis about why being a teenager is the worst and what sort of island we should build to house every teen in America, but I’ll leave that for another time. While Emir was our honor roll student at the Farm, we had our share of delinquents. One such example was a high school sophomore, who would make an appearance from time to time, ”Julie.” She was short, she was white, she was a brunette, she thought “booty shorts” were appropriate garden wear, and she was whiny.  Julie would often refuse to pick any of the “dirtier” vegetables, for fear of a dirt getting on her fingers. She would refuse to work with other volunteers if they were pungent (meaning, anyone). The only lasting impression Julie made was on a picnic table, where someone wrote Julie is a bitch in sunscreen, which burned into the wood. However, she acted as a catalyst for our next story.

While Julie was a no-wage slave on the Farm for school credit, “Rob” was with us because he was a troubled teen. His options were working with idiots like us or going to juvenile hall. He chose the idiots. Rob was just your standard skinny white boy, trying to look tough. He spoke with a thick “Row dyland” accent, which punctuated his many, many tall tales.

It seems that when you combine an adolescent male and an adolescent female, they both begin to suffer from a case of “stupid brain.” In order to impress Julie, young Rob would spin tales while stuffing cardboard boxes with malnourished squash. He claimed to be a smooth criminal, until he slipped up. Rob regaled us with the time he snagged 10lbs of marijuana from Amsterdam. When he arrived back in these United States, our post-9/11 TSA just laughed him off, even as they pulled brick after brick of pot out of his bag in front of the entire airport.

“Yo dawg, put that back,” Rob demanded of the TSA agent, with swagger literally pouring out of his ears. Naturally – because a TSA agent would listen to a 16 year old – they put all the pot back and sent Rob on his way.

The crime that resulted in Rob’s 240 hours of community service was one of passion and tragedy. Rob had discovered that his mother had been diagnosed with cancer, which is always terrible. People react to the news of a terminal illness in a number of different ways. Some cry. Some begin drinking. Some turn to God. Rob took things in stride. As in he walked a stride or two down to a local gas station, waited for a car to stop at a red light, and shot the driver in the face with a .22.

Rob told enough stories to fertilize the farm for a week. Sadly, there are many details that have been lost to the ether of my memory. He was the 16 year old equivalent of that barfly who spins a new pub lore after his 10th beer of the evening. Why Rob felt the need to transparently lie in order to impress a few strangers and some idiot girl, I will never understand.

Wait, no. I just got it.

Almost six years ago, I proudly stepped away from college with a crisp, fresh college degree. I was certified educated, ready to take on the world. Almost six years ago, I ended up working on a community farm, growing squash, killing bugs, and watching over the community service volunteers. Great use of my fine arts degree.

The farm was fairly small, about 150 by 250 feet.  It had sections of squash, plots of peppers, innumerable baby tomatoes, even a row of grapes that never, ever grew. My partners in crime and grime were, Lou, Geoff, and my brother, Sam. To help us tend to the crops we had a league of volunteers. They came in all shapes and sizes; high school students trying to earn summer credits, juvies doing community service in lieu of jail time, and recovering cokeheads from halfway houses. Our finest student volunteer was “Emir”.

Meet Emir

Emir was our star volunteer. He was a symbol of everything good and right in the world. He was our little, brown beacon of hope. Emir was a high school sophomore of Middle Eastern descent, skinny as a rail, with dark black hair. He was soft spoken, which lead us to believe he must be the strong, silent type. Emir was an invaluable asset in the war on hunger. As our Food Bank boss noted, “[we] were in direct competition with migrant workers!” Despite that we were a nonprofit and also not competing with anyone, as the volunteer supervisors, we were under a lot of pressure to pick our veggies as quickly as possible. When we asked Emir to go pick green beans, he would silently saunter over to the rows and wouldn’t quit until his hands were thick with beetle blood and dirt.

This was fairly typical.

Unlike most of our “volunteers,” Emir was working at the Farm for high school credits. He was a good kid, but one day, he didn’t show up for work. We didn’t think much of it. Actually, we didn’t think much about anything, except for lunch. Sick of eating dirt or 7/11-brand chips and cola, Lou, Geoff, Sam, and myself piled into the Food Bank’s ’82 Mazda Deathtrap pick-up. We were on the hunt for a decent meal. I can’t even recall if we ever found any grub, but I do recall that we ended up by the airport. We were lost, belligerent, and each screaming different directions at Lou, who responded by jerking the wheel left and right, slamming Geoff and Sam into the headrests on the front seats.

Lou had driven across Rhode Island and back. We knew we were in the same town as our Farm, but we weren’t sure how to get back. Slowly crawling past a park in our Mazda, we look out the window to see none other than Emir, equipped with a fresh cast on his arm. We pulled up alongside Emir and friends, with the windows rolled down.

“Hey Emir!” I yelled.

He was visibly shaken – as any little, brown fellow might be when a beat up, pick-up truck full of pungent, dirty, white boys rolls up to you. He lifted his cast, and quickly blurted out “IBrokeMyArmPlayingHockey, that’s why I wasn’t at the Farm today!” We assured Emir that we only wanted directions back to the Farm, we weren’t going to drag him across Rhode Island behind the Mazda.

Unfortunately, Emir was not nearly as skilled with directions as he was at picking tomatoes. However, the following week, Emir was back at it again, picking vegetables one handed. If only all of our workers were as silent and diligent as he.

Next Week: Adolescents.

Over the summer, I found myself in the fine state of Washington for the 3rd time. This time I was there with a purpose; my cousin & dear friend, Anne, was getting married. During the reception, which took place mere feet from the Pacific Ocean, I roamed around with my video camera. I asked the guests for 6 words for the bride & groom. In many cases, I didn’t get exactly 6, but I did get to make a fun little video. I hope you enjoy it.

Please remember that you can find me on Vimeo over at Hyphen Home Movies.

While I was toiling away in high school, my mother was supporting our family as a visiting nurse. She would visit low income families, helping patients with long standing issues or who recently had surgery. While driving me through Providence on my way to school, she would leave me with casual observations; such as the inverse correlation between low income and the size of your television.

One particularly unmemorable morning, my mother decided to tell me a story about her previous day at work. Mom was visiting a patient complaining about abdominal pain. The patient, a large, large, large overweight woman, had surgery on her stomach a few days prior. When my mom entered the apartment, she knew something was a little “off.” The air was heavy and smelled faintly of almonds.

Mom inspected the hefty patient, lifting folds and searching through crevices on her torso. My mother had soon located the problem. Under the patient’s fat folds was the cut from her recent surgery. The stitches had burst days ago and the large woman’s large insides were peaking out. The patient was so fat that she did not even notice her gangrene wound.

My mother is not a visiting nurse any more.