Submitted December 16, 2005 by Rick Violette
In the summer of 1957 or 1958, at the tender age of 10 or 11, I had my first “work day”. One of my cousins bragged about all the money you could make by going “bean picking”. Oh my God!
There was a school bus full of kids, from age 10 to probably 15, that were picked up at about 6:00 A.M., with our little brown bag lunches we were off to someone’s string bean field. We all wore similar wide-brimmed straw hats to protect our heads from the sun.
The field boss would assign you a row that seemed to go on for about 23½ miles! Then you bent over and started picking, putting the beans in bushel baskets. After what seemed like an hour you tried to straighten up and you discovered what your grandparents complained about when they tried to move around with the alacrity of a snail with sore feet! So you tried squatting, kneeling, stooping and combinations of all the above. You changed position more often as the day wore on.
You had to pick a quota before you would get to the big bucks. Seemed like 1,290 pounds and then you got paid 15¢ a pound. The first 1,290 pounds were 10¢ a pound. I think the bosses had butcher fingers, except they lifted up on the basket so it didn’t register the correct weight (always a little light)!
Lunch finally rolled around after what seemed like a week. The old fluffer-nutter went down very quick and easy. We had 15 minutes for lunch – not even enough time to take a cat-nap. Then it was back to the waiting row of beans.
I think we picked until 3:30 or 4:00 P.M. and it was back to the bus for our ride home. I was so tired I couldn’t speak, so achy I couldn’t move and sunburned (took my shirt off for a while) that I couldn’t sit back in my seat. I think I made $3-4 that day. I never went bean picking again. It was then that I discovered that play was a lot better than work and that money didn’t bring me as much joy, as earning it had brought me pain! Oh for the joy filled summers of youth!
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