Chapter One, Episode 141 - Experience and the Teacher - SituationallyTheirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

In many of the books about writing I've read, a character should go through a process of growth. In this episode, although not a short story, my writing exercise addresses this growth issue. The main character, Matt Hamilton, begins as the teacher. In the middle of the scene is questioning the ability of his students, and at the end he becomes the student. 

Without changing the intent of this writing, I did tighten up some sentence structure along with some other minor fixes (punctuation, typo's)

Experience and the Teacher

“Hold it as if it were a baseball - just like that - in the palm of your hand. Now. Lift it up - gently Gently. Twist and pull. No, no don’t tug, pull gently. You don’t want to bruise the fruit or damage any branches.” Matt Hamilton was not used to educating teenagers about picking apples. Joey Tucker and his friend, Steven Whitley, had been hired to pick the Beaufort Estate’s apples. Dez had called her friend Matt in a panic when she found out that neither of the teens that she had just hired knew anything about picking apples - unless it was a windfall apple or an apple in the produce department of a grocery store. Matt’s own seasonal pickers had completed their two week Covid19 isolation and were set up to start the pick of Matt’s orchard. They had been with him for several years, so he was able to leave them on their own for a day. Dez had told him it would ‘just be a couple of hours’, however after talking with them for just a few minutes, he guessed he’d be at the Estate til at least after lunch. Joey put his hand up tentatively. “How do we know if they’re ripe enough to pick, Mr. Hamilton?” Matt scrubbed his forehead. Where did Dez get these two guys? He took a deep breath, smiled stiffly and said “There are several ways. I’ve told Miss Eliot - Miss Dez - how to do a starch test for ripeness. So she can tell you, but there are one or two other things that, while not as certain, can help you when you’re up in the tree picking.”

~~~~~

After Matt had shown Joey and Steven how to put on the apple picking bags, how to handle the apples and then how to put them in the bin at the edge of the orchard, he directed each of them to a fairly short tree. He didn’t know what he was going to tell Dez. Friends for years and, recently, in a very on and off relationship, they always relied on each other for support. “Dez, I don’t know if these two guys are going to work out.” He rehearsed his little speech on the other side of the toolshed. Where was Samuel when he needed him? Looking up, he saw him leaning on his hoe watching him, a rather wicked grin on his face. Samuel was having fun! “What’s so funny, Samuel?” 

“You are, Matt. I seen you tryin’ to teach them two boys about apple pickin’. Patient. Patient.” Samuel had, in fact, been impressed with Matt’s teaching ability. “They’ll do just fine, Matt.” He leaned his hoe up against the toolshed. “How old were you when you started pickin’, Matt?” Matt grinned and squatted by the tomato plants, looking them over and, lifting a heavily laden limb, he secured it to the tomato cage with a tie from his shirt pocket. He turned and looked at Samuel. “Now, what’s that got to do with anything? I was almost seventeen. It was my first job……..” Matt shook his head. “You got me there, Samuel.” Matt stood up and tossed a clod of dirt at Samuel, who caught it easily. He tossed what was left of it back at Matt. Matt pushed his cap back on his head, ran his fingers through his hair and, holding it front and back, pulled it down again. He said to Samuel “I guess I’d better go tell Dez that I’m keeping an eye on them for a while to make sure they’re doing the job right. Thanks Samuel, you’re a good man.”

“Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.”

~ John Keats