An Apple Picking Adventure

Growing up in the ‘70s in the Seattle area as teenagers, we were afforded a unique opportunity.

Almost every year in the early fall, the local radio stations starting broadcasting “the call for laborers”. Eastern Washington is one of the most fertile areas for growing apples, specifically Washington Red and Golden Delicious Apples. Whether because of a shortage of workers or a fear of an early frost, the DJ’s would start announcing that the orchards needed pickers.

I had two close friends that I hung with a lot that summer. We had never considered getting involved before, but one particular Fall we decided that we would do it. We’d jump in one of our cars, race over the mountains, pull up to a roadside orchard, spring out of our Hot Rod, offer our services to the beleaguered Orchard owners, and be hailed and financially rewarded as the saviors from the West.

Well – the idyllic quest started out great as we sped East with Seattle in the rear view mirror, wound through the mountain pass and shot out into the hot Eastern countryside by the mighty Columbia River, but it came to a grinding halt as soon as we got to the orchards. Where were the desperate orchard owners and workers who would be welcoming us with open arms? Where were the signs announcing where we could swoop in and save the day? Where were the piles of cash ready to be distributed to all of us willing souls from the West?

So – we pulled into the first seemingly abandoned orchard and sprang forth ready to pick! We spotted a little shack and decided that we better start there. As we stepped inside we found a little desk with a woman sitting behind it. In the best “Ta-Da!” voices we could muster, we announced that we had heard of their plight. had been summoned by the big city radio gods, and we were here to help…

In a single moment, the dream came crashing down. An almost disinterested “What…? was all she muttered as she peered over her reading glasses, cigarette bobbing in her mouth. We stammered out an explanation – she had NO idea what we were talking about, but said that if we wanted to pick apples, we had to go to the labor office in town. Well – as deflating as this had been, surly we’d find the answers and direction (and grateful reception) we’d been seeking there.

Reaching the labor office in Wenatchee, we did find people who knew what we were talking about. And they were excited about us being there and wanted to know how long we were there for. How long? We were just here for the day… we had to work tomorrow… what do you mean “how long”? Apparently, they expected people to come work for a week or two, or even a month – not just a day – and of course the whole day we had committed to was almost half gone now! The nice lady at the office smiled politely, made a few phone calls, and ended up finding an orchard that would take us on for the afternoon.

We rambled up some non-descript dirt road and found the orchard we were supposed to pick at. Once again we piled out of our car and presented ourselves for use. The foreman sized us up, gave us the “I’ll guess you’ll do” nod and led us off down the rows of apple trees. In the 100 or so yards we walked she filled us in on everything we’d ever need to know about the correct way to pick apples. You had to wear this apron-looking thing to put the apples in as you were up on the ladders picking. You had to twist and break the stem at a certain place where it connected to the branch: do it right and the tree would produce from the same spot year after year, do it wrong, and it would take 3 years before that place would produce another apple. As you filled your apron, you had to carefully climb down the ladder and gently release the apples into a big (I’d guess 4’x4’x4’high) apple bin. Repeat this process and fill up the apple bins stacked at the end of the orchard rows.

What we had intended to be a fun day of helping out and getting handsomely rewarded for it had turned into a remaining afternoon of apparently scientific apple removal from fragile trees and balancing on ladders while caring for each apple as though it was as breakable as an egg.

Well – we got our marching orders, scampered up our ladders, and began to pick. It didn’t take long until we figured out that it was really difficult to pick the apples correctly. Being less than mature adults and having our day already turning out much different than we had planned didn’t help us really care about the picking process. It was also a lot easier to pick the apples quicker if we just grabbed and pulled without regards to those little stem thingys.

Get some kids up on ladders and doing a boring, repetitive chore like apple picking, and it won’t be long until some tom-foolery ensues. We ate our fill of apples, threw the cores at each other between the trees, and even tried to see who could throw whole apples the farthest down the hillside we were on. And speaking of hillsides, we had some challenges trying to keep those cherry-picker type ladders upright on the slopes. We had a few close calls, and once a ladder went over taking us all out in the process. Had we not rolled and bounced just right as we hit, there might have been some serious injuries, but instead we just laughed uncontrollably at the silliness of it all.

We did work, or should I say “work” all afternoon at that apple orchard, and between the three of us we actually filled a whole bin. Never mind that the migrant workers who were picking around us had each filled several bins by themselves in the same time span. We felt we had done a great job since we weren’t professionals and had endured certain – although self-inflicted – hazards and limitations.

After we filled that one bin, we decided that we’d had enough. We’d spent more time laughing, falling and eating than picking and didn’t really anticipate our attitude or approach to the task at hand changing much. We sauntered on down to the orchard’s job shack to let them know we were heading out and to cash in.

$11.00. We made $11.00.

Divide that three ways, pay for the gas, pay for the breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks… yeah, it wasn’t exactly a money making venture. But - we had a great time, and it does make for a great story – but heed this as a warning to all reading this that not every time will things pan out the way you plan. So when/if you ever happen upon some similar adventure, take it from me - learn from it, laugh at it in retrospect, and chalk it up to one of those life lessons that goes down as a great memory and an event that shapes who and what you are.

Old Fashioned Fishing

I grew up in a family that loved the outdoors. We camped, we hiked, we went to the beach, the mountains, a local lake… anyplace that we could enjoy the great outdoors.

We spent a lot of our weekends hiking and fishing. There are a lot of things that we did a bit differently back then. To begin with, we didn’t have the latest and greatest in fishing tackle and gear. Our rods were made up of two or three sections and when they weren’t assembled, we held them together with rubber bands, not in handy little plastic protective cases. This also meant that they weren’t necessarily all together when we grabbed them. More than once, it made for a bit of last minute scrambling. Our reels usually required a few minutes of attention to get the tangles out and everything set up. We put weights on our lines using our teeth and tied hooks with clumsy knots.

Why in the world would we pay for something we can get for free? That was the philosophy of my dad and uncle, and meant that me, my brother and cousin were out in the yard at night after having the sprinkler on all evening so that we could get night crawlers. It was a fun job for a kid, and did teach us that we could provide for ourselves… we didn’t always have to pay for things you could put forth effort to acquire.

We drove to trailheads late at night and slept in our cars with nothing more than a blanket and a wadded up coat for a pillow and leaning on each other.
Up at the crack of dawn, we did not eat some fancy nature trail bar thingy or drink a high energy drink. It was coffee from the thermos and maybe an apple or a candy bar… just something to get us going. We’d hike through dew soaked meadows and fight off mosquitoes the old-fashioned way – we’d SWAT ‘em. We’d spend the day fishing and would almost always come home with a mess of fresh mountain-lake fish. Limits were like 8 or 12 per person, so 5 or 6 of us would get quite a haul.

I don’t know – do kids still do these things today? It seemed like all my friends growing up fished, hunted, or did something outdoors most every weekend. It’s something the kids of today need to experience for themselves, and, NO, swinging around a Wii does not an outdoor experience make!

There's a bathroom on the right...

I remember a time when I didn’t know the words to every single song that I ever tried to sing along with. I remember sitting around my parent’s stereo console with some friends and listening to the latest and greatest top 40 hit that one of us might have bought on a 45 that week. I remember as we picked up the needle and played it over and over, straining our ears to try to figure out the few words that we hadn’t been able to quite make out as we had listened to the song on the radio. I remember us kids all arguing about it and deciding that we really weren’t sure – some of us thought one thing, some another – and we’d decide on the most obscure one, somehow thinking that with a weird word or reference that we didn’t understand, the song was even cooler and so were we since we had it.

And – that’s where we left it. Blissfully unaware of our inaccuracy, and none the worse for it.

So – today – is there any song that you don’t know the words to that you haven’t looked up on the internet? Do you jump on the computer and it’s only a matter of seconds before any confusion about what you thought you heard is either confirmed or cleared up? Or – do you try to listen to it over and over… maybe ask your friends what they think the words are?

…just a little bit of innocence that we’ve given up to the information age.

A Different Kind of Drug Problem

I often lament about the difference between kids today and who/what we were as kids growing up.

A friend sent this to me. It says more in a short paragraph than I could say in a month of blogging. If you click on it, it will open up much larger to read with our aging eyes.

And, please don't think I hate all kids today (I have a couple of my own, you know) - or that I throw all kids into this cauldron of "spoiled lazy brats" soup. I do think that in a lot of ways, this generation of parents as a whole, has certainly done our kids a disservice by not drugging them in some of the ways mentioned here.

I'll be the first to admit that raising kids is hard work, takes concentrated effort and challenges our own abilities and level of commitment - even to the things we strongly believe in. But I also know that it's worth the headaches and heartaches. I pray that God helps us all to bethe types of parents that raise kids that will be upstanding and contributing parts of society, kind and caring to others, and giving rather than selfish.