Late June is cherry season. Many of us who grew up in the orchard belt that stretches along the south shore of Lake Ontario landed summer jobs picking fruit. Besides earning a little spending money, we learned something about work. Life may be a bowl of cherries, as the song says, but harvesting required a tough and sweaty effort. At dawn the leaves were clammy with cold dew, by ten the sun was baking the sticky mixture of juice and pesticide onto hands and arms. Wrestling with pointed ladders, climbing, filling buckets—the hours passed slowly and the money was hard-earned.
Thanks for this, Jack. I shared it with my granddaughters, and told them of my experience picking strawberries with migrant laborers at Greig Farm in Red Hook in 1956. Burned in my memory ... and in my conscience. What a great service to resurrect Edward R. Murrow's report; I also remember watching "Harvest of Shame".
Thank you, Jack, for yet another fine story, this one heartbreaking, especially since the conditions still exist. You picked cherries, I picked peaches one summer along with Jamaican men. The peach fuzz would get up my nose and all over my skin, but I could go home at the end of a day and have a shower. I doubt the men could do the same. I hate seeing bargain prices on food.
Boy did this open my eyes to how lucky I am. When I was growing up on Gilbert Street we were the last to have much of anything, but even that was so much more than this group of migrant people. I was happy to see that NY did step up a bit to help them. Edward R Murrow sure was a decent man and had a personal interest in the migrant people. Very good article again, Jack and thank you.
Thanks for this, Jack. I shared it with my granddaughters, and told them of my experience picking strawberries with migrant laborers at Greig Farm in Red Hook in 1956. Burned in my memory ... and in my conscience. What a great service to resurrect Edward R. Murrow's report; I also remember watching "Harvest of Shame".
Thank you, Jack, for yet another fine story, this one heartbreaking, especially since the conditions still exist. You picked cherries, I picked peaches one summer along with Jamaican men. The peach fuzz would get up my nose and all over my skin, but I could go home at the end of a day and have a shower. I doubt the men could do the same. I hate seeing bargain prices on food.
Thanks, Phyllis. You're right, we take for granted things like a shower and bathrooms.
Boy did this open my eyes to how lucky I am. When I was growing up on Gilbert Street we were the last to have much of anything, but even that was so much more than this group of migrant people. I was happy to see that NY did step up a bit to help them. Edward R Murrow sure was a decent man and had a personal interest in the migrant people. Very good article again, Jack and thank you.
Great article Jack, brings back many childhood memories. I seem to recall they were spraying those orchards with DDT back then. No worry there!
I still remember my mother, "Did you wash those cherries before you ate them?" Oops, forgot.
Rubbing the cherries on your shirt is washing, right?
Brilliantly recouted and timely. Your writing is so succinct - not easy pickens.
Thank you
Thanks, Rachel. My idea of an essay is like taking a short stroll rather than just marching straight ahead, beginning to end.