Picking up potatoes

 After the Second World War in the 1950 we started going to California in the spring to work in the fruit. We would stay all summer and then my folks would find a ride for us to go back to Arkansas to stay with Grandma Taylor and go to school. One of the jobs that I had when I was living in California was picking up potatoes. This is a very dirty job. We would go to field early in the morning. We would arrive before daylight. As soon as we could tell the difference between a potato and clod of dirt we would begin working. We would wear a belt around our waist that had hooks attached to a board which would strike us about midway between the knee and hip. The top of the board was attached to the belt. At the bottom of the board were two hooks separated by about 10 inches. The belt was a broad belt that had two large hooks on both sides in the back. On those large hooks in the back were hooked potato sacks which had metal rings in it which were about 10 inches apart. The sacks were about 4 feet long. They had at black mark diagonally across the top about 8 inches down from the top. With these sacks hooked by the metal ring to the hooks on the bottom of the board the sacks were thrown between your legs. When the digger would come by dusk will roll out from it and cover us with the cloud of dirt. We were wet and sweaty in the dust clinging to us so that the only thing you can see of us was the white of our eyes. We would throw the sack between our legs, bend over, and start picking up potatoes. When this sack filled up to the black mark which was on it we would set that sack aside reach around behind and grabbed another sack and start putting the potatoes in it.

We usually got paid about seven cents per sack in order to make seven dollars you had to pick up 100 sacks of potatoes. I could usually pick up about 200 sacks per day. Which meant, I would make about 14 dollars a day. That was not a bad salary for a 16-year-old boy and the 50s. As I stated earlier we start working around daylight in the morning and work till about two o'clock in the afternoon. By that time it was so hot out in the field we had to stop working. We would head back to the labor camps where we were staying. We would clean up by showering and putting on clean cloths. Some days we go to town and go to a movie and other days we would play basketball. Some days we just hang around doing nothing. It was hard work but we had a lot of fun doing it.