Gina Stewart Lebsock

Attack at Dawn

In 1961 I was 15 years old. I had taken a job on a dairy in Artesia California, the one-time dairy capital of the world. I was paid $3 a morning, my duties included pitchforking hay to 120 hungry cows. I also washed out the barn after the cows had been milked. Six dollars for rubber boots was more than I could afford so I was always barefoot; I would just squirt my feet off if I stepped in cow dung. Many years later when I told my own kids about my work ethic they'd moan, “We know; 'in the snow, barefooted up-hill both ways'…”