At first, being sent to stay with Grandpa over the summer vacation was a punishment.
I was a freshman in high school, and my folks told me if my grades were weak I had to go stay on the farm for the whole summer.
My grades were beyond weak, and away I went. That was when I learned something my parents didn’t know — that Grandpa had a sideline business, and had become a pot farmer in addition to growing soybeans. It was hard work, there is no disputing that, but working on a pot farm was sort of a dream job for a 15 year old. On the down side, it was the summer and instead of sitting inside the air conditioning playing video games for eight weeks I was working in a field under the hot sun. There was the world’s smallest air conditioning in the living room of his double wide trailer, and that was our big reward at the end of the day. More accurately, air conditioning was the reward grandpa gave us at the end of a long hot day, marijuana was the other big reward at the end of the day. Of course grandpa wouldn’t let me get high, but he would always pass out in front of the air conditioner by 8 o’clock and I would spend the next few hours smoking my brains out! I would have to leave the air conditioning and go outside to get high, but it was well worth it. I really miss those crazy summers on grandpa’s pot farm.