Montlake - 2021 and Way Beyond by William Goodrich Bellman Chapter 14 - Cashmere and Apple Knockin'

While I was a sophomore at Garfield, the school got a call from Fifth Avenue Orchards in Cashmere, Washington asking the school to organize a crew of boys to work in their apple orchards at the end of the school year. The pay was to be 25 cents per hour for a ten hour day. Out of that came one dollar for room and board. The orchards were owned by a group that also owned property in downtown Seattle; namely the White Henry Stuart building on Fifth Avenue; thus the name Fifth Avenue Orchards. The boy's advisor at Garfield, Mr. Cunningham, recruited about twenty boys to go to the orchards. Most of us had never worked in an orchard, and most, had never worked, period. Our job was to thin the small, green apples, spacing them approximately 6 inches along the stem or branch. In later years a chemical spray was perfected that automatically did this thinning. We worked six days a week and when Sunday came we were more than glad to have the day off. Rainy days were days of leisure, but these were few and far between in sunny Cashmere.

After a couple of weeks Bob Lemcke and I quit because we had heard that other orchards were paying thirty cents an hour. The two of us went to Wenatchee, with a couple of bucks in our pocket, thinking that we could find work, and really not knowing how to go about getting it. We spent some of our money for a meal and used the last of it to go to a movie. After the movie we decided to hitch a ride and go back to the old job.

Low and behold, the people that picked us up were the daughters of a Mr. Jones, who just happened to be needing two experienced workers, and at thirty cents per hour. The girls drove us to talk to their Dad, at his orchard on the south outskirts of Cashmere. Apparently Jones liked our appearance as he hired us on the spot, showed us where we were to sleep on the screened in covered porch, and then took us into the house to meet his oldest daughter, who would be doing all the cooking. It turned out, she was a pretty good cook except for her bread, which was good on the inside, but quarter inch thick greasy crust on the outside. Bob and I learned to like it if we soaked it in gravy.

After our interview with Jones, we started to leave and he asked, "Where you going, boys?" We told him we were going to walk to the highway and hitch a ride to Dryden to look up my brother, George, who was working in an orchard there. Mr. Jones said, "Why don't you take my Dodge car, you can make better time and still be back here by dark." We were surprised by his offer, since he had only known us for a few minutes, however we gladly accepted and took off in the car.

After much looking and inquiries, we found George, living in the back of a restaurant, owned by a Greek who also owned the orchard George was working in. When we heard about the Greek we became worried about George's welfare, as we had been told what some Greek men did to young boys. However, our fears were unfounded. George's room was not really a room, it was a corner of a storage area, and the only privacy wall was one of empty corn flakes boxes, which George had consumed the contents of, and used the empty boxes to make the makeshift wall.

Farmer Jones, was a nice fellow to work for and we responded by doing a good job for him. He had very poor eye sight and worried that he might soon have to sell his two orchards and retire. We did cheat on him some: When we knew he wouldn't be around, we skinny-dipped in the irrigation flume which ran along the west edge of the Jones orchard.

Sixty years later I went to Cashmere and attempted to find the old Jones ranch, to no avail. The surrounding area had changed so much that nothing was recognizable. Bob and I spent several weeks working for Jones and when the job was finished, Bob went back home, and I went back to Fifth Avenue Orchards and was able to hire on till the finish of the harvest.

When I returned to work at Fifth Avenue, the foreman said I could eat with he and his family, rather than with the other orchard hands. That was a break for me as there was more food to choose from at the family table. And too, I had noticed a comely young girl, apparently a relative, was visiting the foreman's family. I became quite smitten with her and spent whatever spare time I had talking and hanging around her. However, the foreman's son, about my age, also had a crush on her, and she kind of liked him. I wasn't really aware of this until one Sunday while the three of us were attending a movie. I was holding her right hand, thinking I was the only one, and looked over and found that he had hold of her left. That was a letdown for me. However, before summer was over, and before she had to return to her home in the East, I aced the other guy out, and we promised to love each other forever. She eventually boarded the train for home and I never saw her again. So much for puppy love!