Posted on 02/23/2017 12:27:49 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It was 1967. The local music store had an ink-blue Mosrite Ventures solid body electric guitar, and I wanted it badly. Cost: $500. My family was not poor, but neither could they drop five bills on one of four children. My first guitar was a $29.99 Stella acoustic from Sears. There was only one way to get the guitar of my dreams: a summer job.
Complication: I had long hair, and even in the psychedelic sixties, few legitimate employers wanted that at their front counters or even their back rooms. All the head shop jobs were taken. We lived in Napa, California, and lucky for me a local farm was hiring plum pickers at $15 per 4X4 foot crate. I talked my buddy Dennis—another unemployable long-hair—into applying for the job with me. We were hired on the spot.
I am a border hawk. I am on record as supporting the most stringent of President Trump’s immigration proposals. In my opinion, the 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act (aka the Reagan Amnesty) was the biggest mistake in President Reagan’s otherwise magnificent presidency. I believe that securing the border is a ballgame issue.
However, based on my short stint as a plum picker, I know that we’re going to need some kind of seasonal agricultural work permit legislation to get the crops picked. Illegal aliens are doing most of this work now. Unless we want to pay five dollars for a head of lettuce to support $20 per hour jobs with bennies to work the fields, Americans will not do this work, and even then…
The day began with a forklift dropping off a crate at the end of a row of plum trees in a vast orchard. We were not picking these plums off the trees. Since they were destined to be processed as prunes, not grocery produce, we were picking them up off the ground. The tree-shaker had been around before dawn, and there were scores, sometimes hundreds, of fallen plums under every tree.
Since it was piecework, there was nothing to be gained by milking the clock. Dennis and I got busy. The morning hours went OK, as it was still relatively cool. We were healthy teens with a lot of energy. If we could do three crates before lunch, we would split $45; if we could equal that effort after lunch, we’d each take home $45 a day. By that equation, I’d have that Mosrite in about 10 days, at which time I intended to unceremoniously quit by not showing up.
Since we had no vehicle and the farm was on the road to Calistoga, we had to bring a lunch. A couple of times my mother drove out in our Buick Invicta wagon and brought us hamburgers, but mostly it was brought-along sandwiches (whose mayonnaise congealed in the plastic bags) and maybe a bag of Fritos. After the first day, the idea of snacking on a plum or two was unthinkable. Water was provided by a free-standing hose spigot in the field.
Bottom line, we never got those three crates after lunch. The California sun became oppressive on summer afternoons, and trees denuded of their fruit provided little shade. We lagged, lollygagged, bitched, and considered walking off the job, always picking, but at a much slower rate. By three p.m., heat prostration, if not full-on sunstroke, was a real possibility. We were sick to our stomachs, and the sight of another tree-load of warm, syrupy plums was enough to make us hurl.
The forklift came, took our full crate, and then brought another empty one. The farm boss had made clear that if we left a crate unfilled on any given day, we needn’t bother to show up for work the next day. We worked hard to fill two crates after lunch.
On about the fifth day, I noticed that our coworkers, all Hispanic, were doing things differently. By the time Dennis and I got dropped off by my mother at 8:30 a.m., they’d been on the job for hours, taking advantage of first daylight, and they rarely stuck around after two p.m. Whole families picked as a team, including young children, and they’d repeatedly blow past us in the adjoining rows, filling crates at top speed.
After a day in the orchard, my head hurt, like a delayed effect sun-fever, and the thought of going back out in the morning troubled my sleep.
Long story short, I got the guitar, but not because I stuck it out. After a week picking plums, Dennis and I had had enough, and went back to what seemed like a more productive summertime endeavor: smoking pot and chasing chicks at downtown Napa’s Fuller Park.
I’d saved a little under $200 from my time as an agricultural worker, and my parents, with what I reckon was a combination of pity and admiration for my attempt, made up the difference. Today that guitar is worth over four grand; I wish I’d kept it.
That was fifty years ago. For all our technological and mechanical advancement, the job of harvesting the products of our nation’s vast agricultural acreage hasn’t changed much since.
Yes, build the wall, enact Kate’s Law, rescind DACA, and crack down on illegal immigration. But we’re going to have to figure out a program that allows people to do a job that this American would never do again, unless I was starving.
DUH !!!
It seems no one listens to Trump.
He said many times that the Wall would have a BIG BEAUTIFUL DOOR to let people in, but they were going to come in LEGALLY.
Fed.gov and its massive debt, in one way or another, whether through welfare, social security, disability, student loans, Pell Grants, WIC, foodstamps and hundreds of other social-engineering schemes, encourages and pays 95 million working-age Americans not to work.
Its just one example of how our printed, fiat currency and massive debt are destroying the fabric of society in many unseen ways.
More junk news. Not even fake news!
Junk News like junk food will kill you...................eventually................
Dr. Oz: EEG Brain Scans Reveal Fake News Threatens Your Health
Observer ^ | 2/23/17 | Dr. Mehmet Oz
Posted on 2/23/2017, 9:55:44 AM by Mozilla
Our show will spotlight a first-of-its-kind social experiment to identify the dangerous and disruptive effect of fake news on our brains. We had high profile fake news creator Jestin Coler craft two fictional stories: one designed to prey on liberals and another on conservatives.
Women read the articles, not knowing they were fake, as neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen gathered quantitative EEG assessments. The findings supported results of a functional MRI study recently published in Nature Scientific Reports, which showed how challenging a person’s political beliefs could activate the parts of the brain associated with emotion and self-identity.
A self-described liberal woman in our social experiment reported feeling sad after reading a fictional article on illegal immigrants, but revealed stronger irritation and anger when processing a fake story about a jailed climate change researcher. Simultaneous changes in her brain activity were also much greater when processing the climate change story and correlated with a strong emotional response of angst and fear.
A conservative woman demonstrated opposite reactions. For her, the article on illegal immigration elicited changes in brain activity changes that you would see during a physical threat.
The women were not told that the articles were fake until they were seated on stage. What happened next was startling. First, the women understandably, but awkwardly, tried to defend why they believed the false stories, rather than expressing frustration that they had been duped. This natural human tendency was highlighted by one woman’s comment that while the news was fake, it reinforced a truth she felt about our country—so the piece was tolerable.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3528304/posts
So protect your mental health by never watching ANCNNBCBS and some Faux liberals.
Never read any article by the NY or LA Slimes, Compost, SF Gay Rhonical, WSJ supposedly about President Trump.
Then: Donate Monthly to Free Republic and don’t read posts labeled as Fake News, Junk News or Not Even News. Let Trump drive the liberals and their mediots even more insane and depressed with his real news from Tweets and his controlled Press Conferences!
4 percent of illegal immigrants are farm workers.
I am not a CA native, but I have heard several speak of harvest jobs like this in their youth. Several did this summer after summer, and often during the school year too, High Schools seem to have allowed ag work leaves.
So not everyone was as easily discouraged as these “long hairs”.
I find nothing wrong with long hair, but I feel one should never get too attached to it or let it hold you back in life. I guess i’m semi-retired now and my job doesn’t care so I have it.
Exactly!
There are plenty here already who need to get off their butts instead of being paid not to work by the government.
We need to let the youth start picking again. I picked strawberries here in Washington state when I was eleven.
When I was twelve I picked strawberries, raspberries, blackcaps and green beans. I outpicked all the migrant pickers and made a thousand bucks in 62 when I was twelve.
Bought a blue transistor radio the year I was eleven -it cost $120.00 which was more than my high-educated but low-paid parents could afford.
When I was twelve I bought all my own school clothes.
The older kids, 15 or so, at some point during the season, headed off en masse to Eastern Washington to pick peaches, but alas, I was too young to go.
Yes, we;ll need seasonal agricultural workers. I’m okay if they have a green card. I’m okay if they are Americans. I am not okay if they are illegals. Let’s follow the law - it’s not that hard a concept for anyone but a democrat.
There’s nothing wrong with having an ordered, reasonable and legal migrant worker program. It’s the disordered mass invasion that have made programs like that unworkable and broken. We need to get back to what legally works for our country and not what works for illegal invaders. It’s worked pretty well in the past and can be made workable again.
I grew up on a farm. There are worse things than hard work and being outside when you’re young.
Organic farmers manage to get volunteers for their farm labor: http://wwoofinternational.org/
Surely conventional farms could clean up their acts enough to make for attractive seasonal jobs for college students. Far better than having them graduate with debt they’ll never bother to pay off.
I started picking strawberries in 1971, I was 6 years old, bought my first go kart with the money I earned that summer. I picked every year until I turned 13 and started working for the lady paying the pickers and stacked the flats as they came in. Government regulations including child labor laws and minimum wage made it impossible for American kids to learn a work ethic and value of hard work at a young age like I did.
That’s fine. Enforce existing laws which were enacted for good reason, adjust/remove ill-advised laws, and deal with the consequences accordingly (including by market forces).
All I want from this issue is immigrants screened for: criminal backgrounds (no felons, misdemeanors debatable), diseases (nothing contagious, especially otherwise eradicated), no indication of straight-to-welfare intent, and acknowledgement that our Constitution prevails & must be respected. Setting quota caps and sensible exceptions is reasonable & expected.
Yes, that’s going to change the economics of seasonal agricultural work. Yes, the consequence of millions violating internationally-normal laws for decades, and then being stopped from doing so, will be harsh - that’s why we enforce & obey laws, and change them thru legal processes instead of just flatly disobeying them. We may indeed need to create a “seasonal worker visa”, which is fine: show compliance with aforementioned issues, with an indication of employer and exit date, and we’ll sort it out. If it doesn’t sort out as desired, other solutions will be found - be it higher-paid workers, or replacement with automation.
Thanks, Left, you’ve fought to create a bad situation which will have broad & deep impacts when resolved. Do it right next time and we won’t have such dramatic problems. And no, continuing your bad path isn’t a viable/acceptable solution.
I don’t either...on women.
Seriously, I don’t really care much unless it’s holding you back.
The fact is that most guys who have long hair don’t get away with it. This kid is one of them. It truly looks awful.
In the job he wants, I told him that it was a safety issue.
My other advice is that if you want long hair, cut it, get the job and grow it out. Let the boss come talk to you then decide.
I’m not one to talk though. I’m follically challenged and so used to it being very short that it feels really long at more than 1/4”
Arapaio did... I’m sure our new sheriff will put an end to that program too...
Seems like the feds have implemented his work place raids, maybe chain gangs will make a come back too.
I suppose you better get started ending welfare ya free-traitor dirtbag!
We can certainly allow for seasonal temporary workers to come in, so long as we are tracking them, and can know if they’ve left at the end of the season or not. But the article to me is a good reason not to do that, because no, we don’t want to encourage American teenagers to smoke pot, chase girls and leech off their parents for their every need. Raise the salaries to what they need to be, but also stop coddling our kids. A little hard work in their youth will make them better people when they get older.
Twenty million of them? I remember the days when Mexicans did come up here for seasonal work, then went home and lived well with their dollars. Then, we were mandated to provide education, healthcare and social services to their families so they brought their families. Then everyone else came for the freebies.
"I'm shakin' it, boss....I'm shakin' it!"
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