Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Source images Getty Images, Supplied
Kicking off the first “How I Spent My Summer” of this year, beloved children’s author Robert Munsch shares how he expected farming in the French countryside would be a gorgeous getaway where he’d learn a language, earn a green thumb and be one with nature. Instead, the now 79-year-old slept in a barn, didn’t shower all summer and made friends with a mouse. But at least the food was good, he says.
The first job I ever had was, strangely enough, hoeing rutabagas in France. I was there in 1966 as a 21-year-old, supposedly learning French. I spent the summer in a tiny little town of 60 people called Aulon in Massif Central, near Limoges, which is kinda the Appalachia of France. Sounds great, right? I thought so. My friend said, “You’ll be gardening in a big beautiful field, the people speak a great dialect, you’ll perfect your French.”
I thought I’d spend the summer getting in touch with the spirit of the earth, blah blah blah. Instead, I found it ridiculously hard, mind-numbingly boring and to be altogether avoided. There were seven of us – four guys and three girls – and everyone but me was English from England, so I didn’t even learn any French. The rutabagas were not very vocal.
A rutabaga is like a big turnip. By the time we arrived, they were already growing, so we were basically hoeing weeds between these long rows that went on forever and ever and ever. More like a mile. You’d have to very carefully use your tool to nick all the stuff growing around the rutabaga, but under no circumstances should you nick the rutabaga itself. The farmer would walk around sometimes and yell in French about the nicks.
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I don’t think I was any good at the job, but I didn’t get fired either. Nobody got fired. I can’t imagine it was an easy job to fill. The pay was so low that I can’t even remember what it was, only that it was not good. The guy that got me the job left that piece of information out. The hours were long and slow. We’d start very early in the morning, like 6 a.m., and we’d go until about 11, when we’d stop to have a slow Gallic breakfast. The French cooking was actually quite good, and definitely the best part of the whole thing. We’d have a big salad and what I suspect was rabbit. Maybe some frog legs.
What was really interesting about this place was that it was where Caesar had a camp during the Gallic wars. We’d be busy hoeing rutabagas when you’d dig up a piece of Roman statuary. The first time I found one, I said to the boss, “What should I do with this?’ He said, “Wreck it! Break it into small pieces so the plants can eat it!” But I couldn’t do that, so I’d put them in my pocket. By the end of the summer, I had a small collection going.
You really had to pay attention to what you were doing, so I didn’t have many deep or great thoughts. I wasn’t thinking about what came next or what I wanted to be, mostly just, “God, I have to finish this, when will this be over?” It was disgustingly hard strained physical labour, six days a week, and at the end of every day, you’d wrecked yourself. The first day I felt like I’d been stomped on by an elephant, then I had to get up and do it again the next day.
Luckily, they gave us free access to a barn for sleeping. That was also left out of my friend’s job description.
I made friends with this little mouse in the barn. It had these little ears that stuck up and it was a very good climbing mouse. I suspect it was sniffing my face while I was asleep because it would take off when I woke up. I also got bugs from sleeping in the barn. We all did. You’d be right in the middle of a sentence when something started crawling down your forehead. I was itchy all the time and didn’t get a shower until the end of the summer. They were considered a weird North American thing. Yes, we stank.
Over the years, I’ve often wondered why I didn’t quit. Maybe I thought since I’d decided I was doing this, I had to do it. Maybe I mistakenly thought being true to myself meant I should stay. Anyhow, I don’t know why I stayed, but I did. I finished and then I was done. My wife handles all the gardening now. And I know now that whenever someone says, “I have a great job for you!” you should run.
