Do away with the illegal labor and we'd have to get the younger generation away from the television, video games, puters, iPods etc.
Oh wait. We'd have to bring back gym classes in school, too. You can't pick peaches or collards all day long if you're out of shape at 12.
May have to do away with air-conditioning in the schools, too. There ain't no AC out there in the fields. May as well get 'em acclimated to reality before it hits.
If my impolitic comments here have offended anyone, tough. That's the way it was when our generation was young. No one gave us a damn thing. There was no such thing as people from Mexico or Guatemala coming here to do the sweaty, back-breaking work. We did it.
A dollar per hour may not seem like much today but it was a lot of money for a pup in the late '60s. 25 cents bought a bagful of hard candy that could last all week.
There were a lot of stereotypes of blacks doing this kind of work. But the stereotypes tend to overlook the white kids who were sweating alongside the black kids. We all worked together where I grew up. We mowed lawns, cleared ditches, tilled gardens. If you wanted fresh strawberries or sweet corn, you went out to the fields and picked 'em.
Something got lost along the way, I fear.
Oh wait. We'd have to bring back gym classes in school, too. You can't pick peaches or collards all day long if you're out of shape at 12.
May have to do away with air-conditioning in the schools, too. There ain't no AC out there in the fields. May as well get 'em acclimated to reality before it hits.
If my impolitic comments here have offended anyone, tough. That's the way it was when our generation was young. No one gave us a damn thing. There was no such thing as people from Mexico or Guatemala coming here to do the sweaty, back-breaking work. We did it.
A dollar per hour may not seem like much today but it was a lot of money for a pup in the late '60s. 25 cents bought a bagful of hard candy that could last all week.
There were a lot of stereotypes of blacks doing this kind of work. But the stereotypes tend to overlook the white kids who were sweating alongside the black kids. We all worked together where I grew up. We mowed lawns, cleared ditches, tilled gardens. If you wanted fresh strawberries or sweet corn, you went out to the fields and picked 'em.
Something got lost along the way, I fear.
