as youngsters, Charles Hawkins and i, really didnt have to do field work like chopping or picking cotton, but we did it and other kids our age did it to help our struggling famalies. my brother and i never experienced a hungry day when my mother was bringing us up. we had adequate everything and plus. but jim crow was very tough on most famalies in our community and we knew any way we could help out beat sitting around waiting on hand outs. we couldnt work at MacDONALDS so we got on that bus, or truck, or in somebodys car and made our way to the field. i never remember making more than $5 per day chopping. picking, you set your own wage in that you got paid based on the price for picking a 100 pounds. there was a book that showed what you made for say picking 70 pounds when they were paying$3.50 per 100. so your 70 pounds might be worth $2.50. depending on what time you could get in the field, and how fast you picked, most folks usually tried to at least pick 250 pounds a day to make it worthwhile so say it was a man and wife team like this one couple i remember The Varnadoes who between them would pick 500 pounds or more in one day, was a lick, almost $15 dollars a day. field work for me was never easy. i have a cousin whom i consider more a sister (our mothers were close sisters), who was from marion before being sent to Little Rock, to go to high school in 1955. we were talking and she said she hated picking so badly she would carry on so in the field about the bugs and once she saw a snake. of course we all feared those stingy caterpillas that would be in young cotton (before the use of herbercides), so she just wasnt any good as a picker, but to my surprise i found out she liked chopping cotton something i hated. the heat and long day, was not something i wanted to deal with. my mother always gave us a time, like from first of june until fourth of july. she would say if yall catch that field bus for a couple weeks, and save your money, you can stop first of July. now the money we saved was not money we had access to. it was earmarked for something else we might need for the coming school year. if we wanted spending money say after fourth of july, we had to catch that bus at least once or twice depending on our desire for this something extra we wanted or wanted to do. i could go to the swimming pool in style for $1.50. .25 to get in the pool and the rest for snacks. i guess in my generation parents let us know early that if we wanted any worthwhile thing we were going to have to Ride dat Mule to get it. they always told us in high school that no one was going to give us anything without a fight
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 05:43:08 +0000
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