Aw, shucks- a corny story

A friend called and asked me if I would meet her at the Farmer's Market in Forest Park, Ga., and help her shuck corn and put the corn up at the cannery there. She said it was only a small pick up truck full of sacks of corn, she desperately needed the help, so I said, "Sure." What did I know?

I guess I thought it would be a wonderful experience or something. So off I drove to the Farmer's Market to meet my friend there; we dragged out sacks and sacks of corn and put them on the cement loading dock. My back was beginning to feel a little different, but we were laughing and cutting up and saying, "All this exercise was good for two middle-aged women!"...we thought. We're women, we can do it...and wow, we will be so proud when we finish. Next we had to shuck all that corn. What a chore! Then we each got a sharp knife and cut the corn off the cobs into a large kettle. By this time we were getting hot and also we were getting hungry, but we did not want to stop. Perseverance, you know. Now to run our corn through the cannery, but before we did this, a few ears of corn were left and we were so hungry and all this delicious white, sweet corn was before us - so we started gnawing down on the corn. Now remember, this is raw corn.

Before this experience I never knew what raw corn would do to a person's system. Believe me, you don't want to know. Ha, ha! It tasted so good, so again I thought, why not eat it? Wrong thing to do! Well we canned all the corn; the truck was empty and I was too dead tired to be proud of what I did. We both laid down on the cement dock after we loaded up the cans of corn into our cars (we halved all the cans of corn). We were so tired, just for a short time to rest, but fell asleep on that hard cement dock for about an hour. Then the problem was getting up, it was almost impossible. I had to roll over and gradually get on my knees and pull up; it felt like a drum was pounding in my back. We both laughed and said it was kind of fun, a new experience, but we never wanted to see corn again.

The next day I stayed in the bathroom all day! My family ate white, sweet corn for nearly three months. Raw corn can give you some kind of experience.

This was my corny adventure helping my friend at the Farmer's market. Was it worth it? I'm still not sure. But my friend and I proved perseverance paid off; we provided many cans of corn for our family. We never gave up. Failure only happens when you quit and give up. Keep on keeping on.

Story submitted by Drucilla Sutter Thomson of Blairsville, Ga.