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Susie Bright's avatar

I have known my partner Jon for 35 years, and I never knew this: When he read my farm work story today, he casually said, “Oh yeah, I harvested beans for Del Monte in Wisconsin in the 70s.”

He said he sat on a wooden bench strapped to a harvester “that would be illégal now” — a 1600 cubic inch gas engine, with dirt flying and the heat about to fry his ass off. You could cook potatoes on the manifold.

He worked 8 days on, one day off. 14 hours a day. Someone else deposited your paycheck for you bc you were DEAD to the world when you were done.

$10 an hour, which was considered great money at the time.

He took a bus to the plant before dawn, then a bus took him to the fields. They picked around the clock until the first frost. Later, he worked in the canning plant, packing up the “shiners,” the label-less cans.

He liked working inside, with other people, and he started an underground comic book that circulated hand to hand, called “Barney Bean Rat” who always had a smart ass thing to say about the boss. I’m going to try to get him to recreate old Barney for me!

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Reading Off Into The Sunset's avatar

The destruction of midwestern farm land is corollary to the loss of the orange groves, and I’ve witnessed many apple orchards, some planted before the civil war, cut down and plowed under to grow corn. It’s all part of a larger story about the ways we are destroying the planet. Don’t even get me started on how we are trampling the wilderness.

Meanwhile, I can only dream of having an orange tree in my yard. If I did, I’d have a glass every morning!

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Susie Bright's avatar

Come by anytime!

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Reading Off Into The Sunset's avatar

I might just swing by some day!

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Celia's avatar

I picked apples in Vermont for part of one season. I didn't last the season. It was physically difficult work and after a few weeks I realized I wasn't going to be able to make any decent money at the rate I was going (we were paid by the box), so I left to find work that would pay the rent

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Susie Bright's avatar

Yeah, it leaves an impression on you, when you next go to the grocery store!

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Peter Stampfel's avatar

John McPhee wrote a whole (short) book about oranges called, I think, Oranges. he writes for the New Yorker. his long time gig there was, right anything you want, about any subject, at any length. yeah, he's that good. I've read dozens of his books. a true fave.,

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Susie Bright's avatar

I know your “exquisite taste” Peter! So I’m going to hunker down on John McPhee at the library this week.

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Susie Bright's avatar

More nosy questions from me: Have you picked fruit as a seasonal job? Or were you ever sent as a kid into the fields to pick, like schoolwork? I went to elementary school in California where in 1st and 2nd grade, we were all sent out to the adjacent walnut groves to pick the fruit. My grandma taught me to pick berries and avoid thorns. No one used gloves. Now I have a pair of gloves that look like something out of a Game of Thrones gauntlets pair.

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Stephen Paskey's avatar

I once owned a home with two pear trees, but I never had the chance to taste them. I waited patiently, checking the trees each day when I returned from work, but one day I came home and the trees had been stripped clean, not so much as a single pear left behind. I can only surmise that a neighbor was also watching and harvested them before I did.

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Susie Bright's avatar

Unless you lived near bears. Oh man, do bears love pears.

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John Miller's avatar

I lived in Redlands, California, during the mid 1950’s to the mid 1960’s. We loved playing in the adjacent orange groves. I never picked fruit but definitely stole a few! I remember being upset at the demise of the groves as they were cleared for tract housing.

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Susie Bright's avatar

Yes, I remember that too, watching the orange groves get cleared away. Even as a kid, you realized the implications were uneasy.

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