Editor's Note: Gary Hofer regularly writes a column titled Crops for the Times. For our Harvest Edition, we asked him to write about what it was like working harvest when he was a young boy. Enjoy his play-by- play recap.

WAITSBURG -- In 1959 and 1960 it took a big crew and many machines to harvest a large crop. Our crew then manned three to five combines and five to six wheat trucks, plus a fuel truck, trap wagon, various pickup trucks and a tractor with pull-chains to res­cue combines or trucks that got stuck. Today, with one big combine, a grain cart behind a big diesel wheel tractor an...