July/Aug 2026 (Volume 18, Issue 4)

 

By Arvid Huisman

 

Back in the 1960s many rural and small town Iowa teenagers earned money each summer by pulling and chopping weeds from soybean fields. “Bean walking” or “walking beans” we called it and it was good work. For many of us, farmers were our first employers.

 

We earned money to put gasoline in our cars for a Saturday evening scooping the loop, to cover the costs of a good time at the county fair as well as for clothing, back-to-school needs and all the other expenses of life as a teenager.

 

 

Chemical weed killers have made bean walking a thing of the past, but I often look back on the task as a great learning experience. Here are just a few of the lessons I learned as a teenager walking beans:

 

1. You must always be alert. If you failed to pay attention or chatted too much with other crew members you might miss a weed or a volunteer corn plant. Having to go back to finish off a missed weed put you behind everyone else. 

 

2. Good tools are important. A pair of durable gloves and a sharp corn knife or hoe was essential to doing a good job.

 

3. Hydration is critical in summer heat. A few swigs of water from an insulated jug every round was essential. Often that was a common jug passed around for everyone to take a gulp. I am not aware of any diseases spread by the water jug.

 

You knew how much water a body lost in the summer heat when you realized you had been working for a few hours and still didn’t have to… you know… go.

 

4. Too much ice-cold liquid in the summer heat is not a good thing. Some of the worst stomach cramps I can remember were endured in a farm field on a blisteringly hot day. In that case it was too much ice-cold lemonade. 

 

5. If female crew members are wearing short shorts and halter tops male members of the crew may choose to lag behind said females by a few yards. To the better mannered reader this behavior may seem uncouth but most teenage boys have not yet amassed much couth. 

 

6. Treating workers fairly pays dividends. Farmers who treated their young bean walking crews well seldom had problems getting help. These were the farmers who provided an occasional break and an ample supply of water. Depending on the work hours they might also  provide a mid-morning or mid-afternoon snack and in some cases a noon meal. And, of course, they “rounded up” when calculating pay.

 

On the other hand, farmers who treated their crews less kindly sometimes had trouble finding workers. The former far outnumbered the latter where I grew up.

 

7. Workers have rights, too. An area farmer came to town in his pickup truck one morning to round-up a bunch of us kids to help weed his soybeans. When we asked if he preferred we use hoes or corn knives, he said he had everything we needed. Upon arrival at his farm we discovered that his idea of “everything we needed” was a pair of bare hands. Assuming he would provide a hoe or knife most of us foolishly had not brought gloves. Pulling weeds by hand isn’t that bad until you hit a thistle patch. This guy had big thistle patches and expected us to pull them bare-handed. 

 

Later in the morning—while the farmer took a break in his house after leaving us at a farm water hydrant—my friend Jim and I convinced the younger crew members that when the farmer took us back to town for noon lunch (we correctly assumed we weren’t going to be fed on the farm) we would refuse to return in the afternoon. We did and the farmer was furious. 

 

The farmer ate lunch that day at the local café where he told everyone there how lazy Jim and I were. (Talk spreads fast in a town of 225 folks.) I’ll bet he found a hoe to get rid of his thistles.

 

8. Farm cooking is good cooking. If the bean walking project went over the noon hour a meal would often be provided. Some farm women whose families had grown up and left home seemed happy to prepare a big meal for a bunch of hungry teenagers. I was happy to make them happy. Real mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans fresh from the garden, pork roast, apple pie… (Sigh!)

 

Driving along country roads this time of year, I often think back to the lessons I learned in soybean fields back in the 1960s. “In youth we learn,” wrote Baroness Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, “in age we understand.” 

 

I learned and now I understand, and now I feel a little guilty about Lesson No. 5.

 

(Arvid Huisman is a columnist for Iowa History Journal. He is retired after a lengthy career in the newspaper industry and as a development director for the Salvation Army in Central Iowa. To purchase an autographed copy of his latest book, “More Country Roads,” send $16.50 to Huisman Communications, 9602 Bishop Drive, Unit 59, West Des Moines, Iowa 50266.)

 

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