strawberries

Picking strawberries was my first paying job, as it was for many other kids in our town. The flood-plain of the Watts River was covered in strawberry fields. There were two kinds of picking: market and jam. Market was for dextrous people who were able to remove strawberries from the bushes with the green plug intact on the end. Jam was for the rest of us who just pulled them off willy-nilly and stuffed about half of the harvest in our mouths. At the end of your work session you would take the silver can up to the shed where it would be weighed and you would be paid in cash for the amount you had picked. I loved the delicate pink stains that strawberries left on my fingers, arms and legs. The only tattoos I ever had and how sweet they were.