Lucinda's Story - Appendix B
Aristippus course co-director tells her story.
I was not the farmer's daughter, but I certainly was raised in a farming culture. Born and raised in Fresno, California, in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the valley is basically a desert. However, irrigation has made an otherwise arid valley the Garden of Eden that it is today, making Fresno the fifth most populous city in California. It is at the heart of California's agricultural region. And if you eat salads, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, and in particular, almonds, they very likely came from the San Joaquin Valley.
As the owners of the largest supplier of agricultural irrigation equipment in the southern valley, our family were not actually farmers. Still, we were very much in the business of agriculture. And even though I didn't actually live on a farm, I indeed grew up in the farming culture. And I was definitely raised as a farm girl. Additionally, as the only girl in a family of three boys, I was very much a Tom Boy as well.
Our family's business was founded by my great-grandfather over a hundred years ago and has been passed down through the generations. My grandfather is the current patriarch of the company. However, the daily operations now rest with my dad and his brothers. This generational enterprise gives the entire clan a very nice living. And to be honest, my father takes advantage of it.
My dad saw himself as some sort of professional gambler, and throughout my lifetime, he would sometimes disappear for months at a time, pursuing this interest. He would usually go to Las Vegas with some hair brain scheme to beat the system. Typically, he would start out making a small fortune and then end up losing it over the course of the following weeks and months of drinking, womanizing, and bad bets. Knowing that he always had a good living to return to and that the family would take him back, he always perceived himself to be some sort of a playboy.
The family staged interventions from time to time, and my mother would always take him back. To be honest, I think that I'm the product of one of those interventions, as my brothers are all notably older than me. But after a year or two, my dad would fall back into his old ways and disappear for months. So, growing up, I never really thought of him much as a father figure. He was just the guy that slept with my mom whenever he was in town. I didn't hate him; no one did. For when he was here, he was a great guy. He was just unreliable, and as a kid, you just had to live with it.
Growing up, I relied much more on my brothers and my uncles as role models. Like I said earlier, I was definitely a Tom Boy. I wore jeans and western shirts. I rode horses, played with all the neighborhood boys, and probably after the age of five or six, never wore a dress again until well into high school.
And as my brothers all played baseball, I followed in their footsteps and played little league right alongside the boys. And though I was fully aware of the biological difference between boys and girls, I remained physically very inexperienced. As far as my brothers were concerned, I was just one of the boys, and if any of the other boys started to take an interest in me for anything other than sports, they would quickly settle the issue.
That was at least until my brothers had all graduated high school and left home. As they left home, one by one, I aged out of Little League, and all of the boys my age moved up to high school baseball. And though I could no longer officially play ball, I continued to hang out around the ballpark and sort of became a team mascot. I'd retrieve foul balls, acted as their bat girl, carried gear, and one additional service that I became well known for. I would give the boys neck and shoulder massages as they waited in the dugout.
It was never an official job, and I didn't get paid directly for it. But there were fringe benefits that included free soft drinks, being included in team pizza parties, and being allowed to accompany the team on out-of-town trips. This, of course, meant riding on the bus with twenty or more guys and free meals while on the road. Now, none of these trips were overnight, and I didn't sleep with any of them. These trips were always well chaperoned by the high school coaches and parent volunteers.
By my junior year of high school, I officially became the team
Trainer.
This official designation gave me actual high school credits as well as other team privileges. Now, I did not have access to the boy's locker room or showers. But did have full access to the team's training room. And I was actually given training on sports massage. So, over the next two years, I doubt there was a single boy on the team that I hadn't had my hands on - that is in my official training duties, at least.
All of this seemed pretty normal to me, and I was even considering becoming an athletic trainer at the college level. I'd been accepted at Cal State Fresno, which meant I could still live at home. It would, of course, be free, and as my brothers were all gone, I could keep my mom company in the same house I grew up in. My dad was in Vegas usually six months a year, so my mom needed someone she could count on.
All of that changed the summer after graduation and before I started at Cal State. I was working for my uncles at the irrigation company for the summer. Something I had done since I was about ten years old. It was good money, and I had always liked it. They would send me out in the field with mechanics and field reps to check on equipment, make repairs, run service calls, and perform similar routine work. I was never alone, and I always loved it. It was dirty, hands-on work. But it was honest work and allowed me to learn every aspect of the company's operations. After all, I was a legacy to my great-grandfather's business, and someday a percentage of it would be mine.
All of that suddenly and unexpectedly changed. I had been out with my Uncle Jeff all day. Without the usual helper, the two of us had loaded eight hundred feet of aluminum irrigation pipe onto a gooseneck trailer, and we were heading back to town. As we were driving back to the yard, my uncle complained several times about a sore shoulder and how he could really use a massage. I was pretty sore myself from helping him load all that pipe, which would typically be a four-man job, and just simply agreed with him. When we were almost back to the yard, I finally realized that he meant for me to give him a massage.
I was hot and tired, and it never crossed my mind that he meant anything more than just a neck and shoulder massage. But once we were in his office, his intentions quickly became much clearer.
"Oh, Lucinda, that feels so good," he sighed as I vigorously massaged his neck and shoulders while he sat slumped forward in his office chair. "You really have the most amazing touch."
"Thank you, Uncle Jeff," I said as I pressed harder and harder. "I've had lessons in being an Athletic Trainer at school, and I think I'm going to major in kinesiology at Cal State."
