The Hop Times

Times have changed but we still gripe and groan but just about different things. This is one of my old Post. I just thought I'd rerun it. I am sure they built a machine that can get the job done in half the time.

It was one of those nightmares you remember forever. Bud was out of work and we had a car payment almost due. We had all gathered on a Sunday at grandma and grandpas house for dinner as we always did on Sundays. Aunt Irene was sitting on the couch reading the paper and read an ad out loud she found in the paper. Help wanted to train hops. $2.00 an hour. Our ears all perked up and asked where? So her and Marge and Bud and I and Pat showed at the hop field the next morning and was hired on the spot. You would go down the row and each pole would have a bunch of new hops and our job was to train/wind a vine around each wire and move on to the next pole and do the same. The poles were too far apart to crawl to so you had to stand up and walk to it. So up-and-down and wind the vines all day. The work became tiring after about the second pole, but we stayed with it and finished the field and collected our pay. We left and as we were driving down the road we saw a sign that said help needed so we stopped to ask for a job. The owner said he pays the men $2.00 an hour and the women $1.00 an hour. Are you kidding? We work side by side doing the exact same thing. He was sorry, but take it or leave it so we left it. Who would work for an idiot like that.