Lars

Lars has worked seven seasons for Thurman Harvesting. He drives trucks. Greg describes him as “the most truck driving son of a bitch you’ll ever meet”. To me, he looks very Swedish; he’s 6-6 tall, very slim, with chiselled features. He has a deep voice and talks really slowly with a thick accent.

He walks the same way that he talks. Greg has a gift when it comes to making people hustle; it’s easy to be worked into a frenzy when there’s a shortage of trucks out in the field, but not Lars. He’ll swagger around his truck, to and from the elevator office, kicking up dust as he walks.

It’s hard to read Lars. He wears a straight face most of the time and is a man of few words. His response to most questions, including open questions, is a short pause followed by a drawn out “Yeah”.

I really like Lars because, like me, he doesn’t fit the typical harvester mould. He’s the most experienced on the crew, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He gets the job done without losing his head.

When he’s not on harvest, Lars lives in the Swedish countryside in a house inherited from his grandmother. In his time he’s been a bus driver in the Swedish Army and has worked in various agricultural and forestry jobs. The US is where he does his truck driving.

The other night, a few of us went to a buffet in Denver for dinner. Every ten minutes or so the restaurant would be hushed so that the wait staff could sing happy birthday, in true fast food nation style, to some poor embarrassed patron. Lars being Lars, we thought he’d be the perfect candidate…I had my camera handy.