My dad loves to tell the story how he raised strawberries on "the farm" when he was growing up in the driest, poorest land in western South Dakota. He says he would grow those strawberries and then truck them to Rapid City where he would sell them for 25 cents/box -- standard size, little boxes, I assume. Twenty-five cents.
He was about eight years old at the time. He contracted with one of his older sisters, who must have been about ten, to pay her five cents for every box of strawberries she picked. I'm not sure about the exact ages, but Dad was the youngest of five children, and it's unlikely a sibling much older than ten or twelve would have agreed to five cents/box.
I tell the story in light of the Drudge Report headline story at the moment. With the Feds shutting down lemonade stands across the country (see map here), I am reassured that we are a long, long way from experiencing the problems that London is experiencing. If "we" have the federal manpower to do this, we are in good shape, as a nation. Not to worry. "Plant a garden, go to jail."
I think the strawberry season must last all of a few weeks, during the summer when school is out. But I could be wrong. Football season is delayed in North Dakota so strapping, healthy, young, happy "boys" can help their dads get the crops in.
The most miserable job I ever had was "picking rocks" north of Williston. I think I was about 15 years old at the time. I never thought I might have been exploited, but, wow, it was awful work. I chose not to ever do it again, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to see what life's options were without an education.
I can tell these stories, now, because I assume statutes of limitation have run out.
I grew up just outside the border of St. Paul, MN.
ReplyDeleteAt age five I discovered some raspberry blants on a hillside a block inside St. Paul. It was probably an overripe fruit dump that cause it but the plants grew. I picked the fruit and sold them to neighbors at age five for something like a dime a pint. I transplanted some of the plants to otherwise inaccessible undeveloped public land where they flourished. Eventually my raspberries got a following and neighbors were happy to pay a quarter a pint for raspberries "fresher than the store". I think I was nine before the other neighborhood kids figured out my "enterprise" which had grown quite big by then. The Ramsey County, MN "poor farm" was near my house and some residents used to hang out at the lake in back of my parents house (which I still own with my brother).
These were older "Jim Crow era" southern blacks who were vary protective of me. There were my second family. Good people. They had poor farm "welfare" but happy to tend and harvest my raspberry patches on public land. I basically went "retial" selling the pints to my customers. The other neighborhood kids tried to figure out my scheme but never couldn't for a long time.
After this I went into landscaping on the affluent lakefront properties at age nine. My work crew would be six to ten old "Jim Crow era" blacks from the old South. Frantic neighbors would report that I was ordering around a group of blacks in a neighbors yard. The police came by a couple of times but cleared me (my boy scout troop leader was the police chief).
I got a nice business and the "old blacks" I "supervised" were good workers and happy to get the money." By age nine I developed a startegic sense of landscaping (which you wouldn't know from my yard now) but I wonder what people would think nowadays of a nine year old white kid ordering around six to ten old southern blacks. I made use all some money.
Somehow I survived this "child labor". In rural areas, kids commonly walk the (soy)beans or detassle the corn starting at a very young age. (this is so arcane it does't have spell-check correction words).
Some regulation is needed for commercial operation. (think of the two kids electrocuted recently by an irrigation system)but you tend to have mothers or teachers supervising.
I started working (for myself) at age five. Life worked out. I developed a work ethic!
Great memories. I do think our experiences at young age certainly made an impact on our adult life.
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