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Anatomy of a dual life

A farm foreman was urged to seek something skilled, something ... air-conditioned. He worked his way into a hospital but can't leave the fields.

By HELEN ANNE TRAVIS
Published December 22, 2006

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photos: Skip O'Rourke] Tony Chavez works as a surgical technician part time at Brandon Regional Hospital. He was one of four in a class of 28 to earn certification. Chavez is also the valued manager of Simmons Farm in Plant city. The son of migrant workers and a go-to-guy for job seekers, he knows the fields too well to leave.

PLANT CITY -- It's Wednesday afternoon. The sky is a blinding blue and the air smells like strawberries. A breeze slaps strawberry leaves against the black plastic ground cover. It's the only sound other than the hum of State Road 60. 

Tony Chavez looks out on acres of strawberry fields and waits for a phone call.

These are the Wednesdays when he doesn't want the phone to ring. Chavez is the farm's foreman. He overseas the pickers in the fields. He fixes what's broken and trims what's overgrown.

His sister always wanted him to do more than this, to "better himself," as she put it. She was the star of the family, a registered nurse at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa at the time. He went to her house to work on her car one day. She told him there was a need for surgical technicians. 

Was he interested? He thought about it. He fixed her car. He said he would do it.

"It sounded clean, and it was air-conditioned," said Chavez, 36.

Trailer No. 1, a green boxcar of a home, still sits on the east side of the field. Chavez and seven siblings lived there with their parents when they worked in Florida in the 1970s and 1980s.

After a few years, they moved into Trailer No. 4. It was big. It had three bedrooms.

When he was a teenager, a new family moved into Trailer No. 7. Sandra Flores and her family traded the tomato fields of Naples for Plant City's strawberry farms.

The tomatoes grow so high, no breeze can reach the pickers. But the strawberries are low to the ground and not covered in pesticides like the tomatoes.

Chavez called her "Wire Teeth" but thought she was beautiful.

The summer ended. Sandra's family left for Texas. His folks followed the crops to Idaho. But they returned to Trailers 4 and 7 the next August.

"I grew a mustache," Chavez said. "That's when I caught her eye."

Four picking seasons later and the two were married. Unlike his brothers, who eloped, Chavez made sure he had Sandra's father's permission.

When Chavez had to leave the fields early to attend surgical technician classes at Erwin Technical Center in Tampa, Sandra took over his position as foreman of Simmons Farm.

Now Chavez is building his dream home, a two-story house with more than 3,000 square feet. It's only a shell on his Plant City lot. When picking season ends, he can devote more time to it.

Overwhelmed at first

His first day as a surgical tech was in the summer of 1999.

Sandra and their daughter, Denise, made Tony a ham and cheese sandwich to take to work. They slipped in a note: We love you. We'll miss you. Good luck!

The cold hospital air was a shock to the man who was used to showering twice a day after working in the fields. His first job was a bowel resection. The procedure reminded him of when his father slaughtered animals.

"It all looks the same on the inside," Chavez said.

For three months, he was overwhelmed. Every day brought a new procedure. He harvested veins. He helped in labor and delivery. He was a commodity at the hospital because of his dexterity.

"Clinically, he's able to do anything we give him," said Jaime Roia, a charge nurse at Brandon Regional.

Roia admired Chavez's positive attitude. In the beginning, his smiles and jokes covered up the reality of legs that ached from the hospital's hard floors. Dirt is much softer than linoleum.

Chavez would leave the fields with dirty nails. His clothes would smell like fertilizer and fresh air. But his hands were cold and smooth from their time in the hospital's latex gloves. He left the operating room smelling of medicine, plastic and recycled air.

The tug of the fields

The hospital was clean and air-conditioned, just as he had hoped. But he couldn't find it in him to leave the hot fields for good.

"At the hospital, you can't see the sun. You can't see if it's raining," Chavez said. "You can't run to the Circle K."

He worked full time at both the farm and the hospital, leaving Sandra in charge at home. Now he's on call one day a week, one weekend a month, and one holiday a year for Brandon Regional Hospital. He works Wednesdays when the phone call comes.

He has never had to work on Christmas, which comes smack in the middle of strawberry season. He can bribe others to work for him with flats of the fruit.

"The amazing power of strawberries," Chavez says.

He's perched on the edge of the driver's seat of the pickup, watching the workers clip the strawberry runners that climb between the rows.

"Microbiology was the hardest thing for me," he says of his days at Erwin Tech. He separates his dirty hands in front of him. "Every word was this long."

Can't leave either job

He keeps one eye on the fields and describes his role in carotid procedures and shunt insertions. He talks of brain surgery as a crow circles the dozens of migrant workers stooped in the field.

He doesn't want to choose.

Everyone at the hospital is educated, and he's proud to work among doctors and nurses. Twenty-eight people enrolled in his surgical tech program. Four graduated. He worked too hard for his certification to quit.

But the hospital can't compare to the wages he earns as Billy Simmons' foreman. It can't compete with the memories of Simmons driving him to school when he caught Chavez cutting classes and hanging out in the orange groves.

"I've worked for Billy forever. He's not just my boss. He's my friend," Chavez said.

Simmons didn't hold Chavez back from pursuing his certification; he encouraged it. Simmons made sure they were done with the field work by the time Chavez had class. Now, Chavez finishes his work early on Wednesdays and keeps an eye on his cell phone.

Simmons doesn't want to see the man who treats Simmons Farm as though it's his own leave.

"He would be really hard to replace," Simmons said.

Chavez knows the fields too well to leave. His phone number is passed around by migrant workers all over the country. They call him looking for work.

When Roia, the nurse who works with Chavez at Brandon Regional, told him he had just bought a new house that needed work, Chavez supplied him with painters and plumbers.

He answers the phone by saying, "Yeah?" He doesn't say hello, in case it's a Mexican calling from the North to see if there's work in Florida. He doesn't say, "Bueno" in case it's the hospital calling, asking him to come into work.

"I can't choose," says Chavez. "It's so hard to choose."

Educated children

His son, little Tony, turned 6 a few weeks ago. Tony and Sandra bought him a Leapfrog educational game system.

"One thing we learned working on the fields is the importance of education," Chavez said. "Who you are in America is what you know."

Chavez never finished a year of school. Now he watches his son and daughter get ready for the social events that come with a stable school life: pizza parties, ice cream parties, field trips to Epcot. He's sorry he missed out on it all.

His 12-year-old daughter, Denise, wants to be a doctor. Chavez couldn't be happier.

[Last modified December 21, 2006, 15:18:57]