GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) – It’s gone now; the old Libby’s cannery, once reportedly the largest cannery in the United States (or perhaps the world). It was for many years the largest employer in Gridley and a mainstay of our economy. Our area was the home of many, many peach orchards and those peaches had to be canned. Later the cannery also added the canning of pumpkins. Life goes on and now we have walnuts, but a generation ago peaches were our primary crop.

A generation ago, when our kids were young, summer vacation did not mean foreign travel or pleasant days of “sleeping in”.  Summer meant, for every kid who was worth his or her salt, twelve- or fourteen-hour days of work. Somehow the “powers that be” hadn’t yet realized the fragility of the younger generation, or that they were not really capable of thinking for themselves as far as safety was concerned.

Our girls, like most of their friends, worked night shifts at the cannery – eight hours of standing by a moving belt while unending supplies of peaches passed in front of them. Each peach had to be split and pitted. They usually worked on the “fuzzy belts”, the least desirable job as the un-lyed peaches made one itch. Our son, on the other hand, worked in the lab. He wore a white hat and (at least in his sister’s opinion) did nothing all day except stroll around impressing the girls – an early example, in their eyes, of sexual discrimination. I still remember the first night one daughter worked at the cannery. She had already put in a long day of babysitting a family of five preschoolers when she was called to report for a shift. She staggered into the house at 4 a.m. in tears. “Mom, I just can’t do it.” She sobbed. (But she did go back the next night).

Our younger sons, once they reached their early teens, worked driving equipment. I don’t remember how kids acquired their jobs; I don’t think parents had anything to do with it. There must have been some sort of an underground communication system. I know they weren’t yet old enough to have driver’s licenses, because I had to get up at four to drive them out to the fields. First it was forklifts, later shakers and catcher framers, later yet work repairing machinery for various ranchers.

As the years went by jobs changed. One daughter learned to drive (as, I believe, a fourteen-year-old) traveling the back roads delivering water to those who were flagging for crop-dusters, and later herself worked flagging. They picked prunes early on, worked on a tomato harvester over near the Sacramento River (where rattlesnakes were frequently harvested along with the tomatoes and thrown up on the belt in front of the workers). Later came summers working as a lifeguard at the pool or teaching swim lessons during the day, while still working nights at the cannery.

Life at home those summers was a little haphazard. Some were working nights, others during the days, some both. The crock-pot was always on and meals were “catch-as-catch can”. But, on the other hand, kids were able to earn almost enough to pay most of the cost when those inevitable college expenses came along.  They did grow up with the knowledge that they could handle an “adult” job and with some wonderful memories of post-shift breakfasts at The Bungalow with their friends. Those jobs also left them with a lifelong work ethic which has served them in good stead.

One daughter reported recently that at a meeting with the “higher-ups” at her company everyone was asked to tell about their first job. As they shared the laughter of early teenage job experiences it was suggested that this was an important question to ask prospective employees. What can present-day kids answer? In an attempt to “keep them safe” are we robbing them of a chance to grow up and take adult responsibility? Sometimes I’m afraid we are.