Strawberry Fields Forever

Did you pick strawberries when you were a kid? I don't mean going with your mom to a U-pick place; I'm talking about the getting picked up by the berry bus at the (butt)crack of dawn, kneeling in the dirt till your jeans were caked, picking till your fingers were crimson and a tell-tale sign of snacking rimmed your lips. I'm talking about stripping down to the bikini top and cutoffs as the sun rose higher in the sky, shunning any form of UV protector, and pretending not to notice the boy 2 rows over trying to ogle whatever tiny mite of skin might shift in his direction when bent just so.

I grew up on a farm where chores were a part of who we were. Summer time was busy.  When I wasn't helping with the farm and haying season, I was signed up, whether I wanted to be or not, for strawberry picking. Mom said  we needed to earn money for some of our school clothes. (I remember one summer trying to earn enough money to buy those designer jeans with the star on the pocket-- dating myself big time!!).

The old school bus converted to berry bus rumbled down our road and I would scramble on, brown lunch sack in hand, avoiding the eyes of the other kids who wanted to be there as much as I did. I would find a seat and hunker down low in it, knees pressed up against the metal backing of the seat in front of me. Sometimes I would nod off on the 20 or so minutes it took to get there. I had a couple of girlfriends from school who were also in the berry field but usually by the end of the 3rd day we'd been told by the berry boss we couldn't pick next to each other because we talked more than we picked. (I probably ate more than I picked too)

We had these funny little berry carts--like a grocery store cart that had been chopped off at the knees, and steered just as quirky-- that a wooden flat filled with little green boxes made of some egg-foamy material. For each flat we picked we got a hole punched in our berry card-- which was the equivalent of a time card. The flat had to be weighed however before we got the card punched and it needed to be between a certain weight to count.

I think I picked strawberries every summer from the time I was probably 11 or 12 till I was 16. (this was before state law requirements for minors was in effect) Strawberries have a short season so you had to be ambitious if you were going to pick enough berries to earn enough money to buy anything to wear with those designer jeans with the stars on the pockets....

Romance in the berry field was a given. You might meet a boy from a different school out there in the rows of green. Your eyes would meet across the field, a code established without speaking. meet me at the water cooler. sit with me at lunch? Oh... my.... at 14 or 15 I was dying to meet someone new!

Today I stopped at the strawberry field just a couple miles from my home and bought a flat of berries so I could make jam. I would like to think that it was picked by some teenager who was hoping to buy some cool jeans for school next year.