#19 Faster Than an Old Man

I remember the big wooden bins we would fill when we picked peaches during the hot and steamy California summers.

The bins, as I remember them, were large wooden crates, maybe (a big maybe) measuring 4 feet across and three feet tall. If you had to move a bin, you would roll it on its sides turning one side at a time and usually placing it in the middle of four trees. We carried a large sack that hung from our shoulders to the front of our chest and which we would fill with the fruit to then empty in the bin. We also carried a three-foot ladder that could go from 14 to 16 rungs (my papi always named his ladders, he’d give them a woman’s name).

Every year we worked for a Japanese farmer. Mr. Kay Shimizu was his name. It was a family deal for them. The parents of El Kay, were always checking the bin for fruit that was either too small, too green or rotten. They carried a yellow ring that looked like a plastic bracelet. If the peach passed through that ring it was not acceptable and had to be thrown out. We were always on the lookout for them. Since they and us were immigrants and though they were our employers, they were really friendly to us, treating us almost like family. I imagine it was our humility and our dedication and willingness to work hard and fast.

Anyway, as I grew and got taller, the senior Kay brought me a small ladder that only had twelve rungs that I could maneuver on my own, and told me I could use it to help my parents. Up to that point, I was in charge of what we called the barba (the beard), I would pick all the lower branches and fill my sack with the peaches that I could reach from the ground. My little sister carried a bucket and would pick the ripe peaches that fell to the ground. When my father saw that no one was around he would give hard shakes to the tall branches and Irma would scramble to pick them up and empty her little bucket into the bin, feeling so useful and proud. She was extremely quick and fearless. So small and eager to please her papi. At times, she would encourage papi with “Otra, otra” (another one).

I was the slow one, but I made them laugh and I sang a lot. Sometimes my papi would tell me to sing songs with a fast rhythm because it seemed that I picked peaches based on the rhythm of the songs I sang. He hoped that my hands would move faster if my songs were more upbeat.

Remember when you’re close to becoming a teenager and you think things like death, illness and weakness do not concern you at all because you’re invincible? Well, one day my daddy told me to go ahead and find a new row of trees and to start on the barba since he and mami were finishing up the last trees of our current row.

So off I go with my little ladder, and it coincided that so did my paternal grandfather Luis who worked the same orchards we did, since he lived with us.

He had white silver hair and looked so old, that I immediately felt a competitive drive moving me. I rolled my bin and set it in the middle of my first four trees and told myself that I surely could be faster than that old man I called Abuelito Luis. And I decided to prove it and make my parents very proud of me.

First things first. I started with the barba. Gone was the urge to sing. All I wanted was to be faster than the old man working next to my set of trees. My grandpa would whistle and wanted to chat me up, but I was too busy trying to show everyone, including myself, that of course I was faster than an old man. Could you not see the speed with which I stretched to get all the fruit I could from the ground? And my trees were good, too, branches heavy with the golden fruits. When I was done with the barba of my four trees, I got my ladder and started positioning it strategically where I could fill my sack without needing to move it more than once.

I was so confident, my triumph too obvious. When my parents and sister caught up with me, they were dutifully impressed. I had filled that bin halfway, all by myself. Trying to be nonchalant as hell, I scooted over to my grandpa to check out his bin. I was so, so crestfallen when I saw that he was about three quarters done with his bin. I couldn’t explain how he had done it. In my mind it was impossible to move as fast as I had moved; to fill that sack quicker than I had. It was a hard blow to my sense of invincibility. And that is how I started the long trek of moving through the remnants of my childhood’s egocentrism.