Sugar Beet Harvest

Late fall and it was sugar beet harvest. My father arranged for me to drive a harvest truck for one of the local farmers from Basin City, George Matsumura. I had driven a truck with a 1900 gallon water tank for all summer so I had an idea on how to handle an overloaded vehicle. The job entailed driving in the field next to the sugar beet digger/harvester as it dug the ten to twenty pound sugar beets from the ground and dumped them into the truck bed. Once filled I would drive about fifteen miles to a massive growing pile of sugar beets, known as the dump. I would drive the truck up a ramp where the bed would be lifted, dumping the beets into a channel that would auger them upwards onto the huge pile. Over and over seven days a week, twelve to fourteen hours a day we worked until the field was completely harvested. The job of driving next to the harvester was to keep pace so the funneling beets would land in the truck bed. Once after several long days I had a moment of non attention and the beets started crashing on top of the truck’s cab. Just a few dents on the roof and nearly at heart attack as I pressed the gas pedal and lurched the truck forward. Never lost track of where the harvester was after that. Only took once. Basin City, Washington