STICKING MY NOSE IN THE WRONG PLACE

 In the summer of 1962, during my high school years, I did a variety of farm work for both my dad and another farmer by the name of Joe Stutz.   Joe was a row crop farmer, growing sugar beets, tomatoes, and beans.    One morning Joe drove me to a field that he was preparing the ground for planting beans.   The rows had been constructed and it was time to fertilize the beds before planting the bean seeds.   The red Farmall tractor he was going to have me operate had two tanks on either side of it with hoses going down to a toolbar on the back of the tractor that injected the liquid fertilizer through steel shanks into the prepared seedbed, six beds at a time.   The fertilizer was ammonia nitrate, very toxic, but there was no mention of that by Joe.    There was never any talk of safety.

Joe gave me instructions on what levers did this and that and pointed to a trailer parked nearby with a large tank on it where I was to fill the tanks on the tractor when they got low on fertilizer.   Joe's parting words were, "give her hell and somebody will pick you up at 5."  Now it was just me, the tractor, my lunch, and a jug of water all alone, a mile from the nearest county road.

As I drove the tractor back and forth over the rows I noticed the tubes on the back of the tractor tanks indicating the fertilizer was getting low, so I made my way to the parked trailer.   The trailer had a small engine on it that operated a pump for filling the tractor tanks with a long hose with a nozzle on it.    After getting the small engine going and putting the nozzle in a tractor tank I could not hear any sound of liquid flowing.   I proceeded to stick my face, nose first toward the tractor tank opening to hear if any fluid was flowing.   In a flash, I was on the ground gasping for air.   It took me a few minutes to gain a sense of well-being and breath again.   It was not the place to be sticking my nose into.   Luckily it all worked out and I continued fertilizing the field without any more mishaps.