Shucking Corn by Jamie Kirkpatrick

We had house guests over weekend, and although the guests were family, that nevertheless meant there were lots of pre- and post-visit chores on my “to do” list. Like mowing the lawn, watering the garden, helping to clean the house, overseeing the process of touching up the porch furniture with a little fresh paint, borrowing a pickup truck, unloading, and spreading 1,500 pounds of pea gravel along the side of the house (albeit with help from two angelic neighbors who took pity on my wife and me and came by with shovel and rake), watching said wife slice three cantaloupes and two dozen tomatoes while baking banana bread and cooking scrapple, picking crabs, buying beer, setting up tables for an afternoon garden party, and shucking corn. Four dozen ears of corn.

Of all those chores—and all the others on life’s “to do” list—I have to say that shucking corn is one of the better ones. Hamlet would have understood this: there is something inherently satisfying about shuffling the soul of an ear of corn from its mortal coil, freeing it from the chaos and confusion of human existence, releasing it from its earthly burden. All the beauty and goodness of an ear of corn is inside its ungainly husk, so one has to shuck it to truly bring it to life, and as the primary shucker this past weekend, I was the one designated by my little general to do the shuffling that freed all forty-eight ears of corn from their silky green mortal coil.

There is immense satisfaction in shucking corn. It can be conversational or silent. It can be done on the porch while greeting the day and the passers-by with a smile and a “Good morning!” It’s systematic: grab a husked ear from the sack, remove the tassel, strip the leaves and brush off the silk. Now build another stack, a yellow and white pyramid that one of Pharaoh’s architects would stop to admire. And all this is but a prelude to the crescendo when a steaming platter hits the table and the fun really begins. Please pass the butter and salt.

I like to find the deeper meaning inherent in mundane chores, and shucking corn provided me with a lot of good food for thought. An unshucked ear of corn is a clumsy nuisance, but once all those lovely kernels are released to the light, all their hidden beauty and goodness is made manifest. Once an ear of corn is shucked and freed from this mortal coil, it is resurrected into something glorious to be consumed and enjoyed, all part of the celestial cycle of life.

Which leads to this: over the weekend, we lost two good men. I want to name them here: Bernie Goodrich and Taylor Buckley. Both were aged and had lived good, full lives, and at the end, they both passed peacefully, surrounded by those who loved them. I will remember each  of them fondly. They are each now rid of their mortal coil, free to dream of what may come, “to be or not to be.” 

I’ll be right back.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a writer and photographer who lives on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay. His editorials and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine. His most recent novel, “The Tales of Bismuth; Dispatches from Palestine, 1945-1948” explores the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is available on Amazon and in local bookstores. His newest novel, “The People Game,” hits the market in February, 2026. His website is musingjamie.net.