Dear Child,
When I was only nine years old, I wanted a job.
And I got one.
There was a raspberry patch near our home. Well, it was about a six minute drive probably, but out in the country, ‘near’ has a different meaning. Grandma made jam every summer, and she would bring us along to help pick the raspberries. When we were paying for the berries we picked, I noticed people returning their full quarts to the stand and being given money in exchange for their berries. I thought I could do that.
I told Grandma my plan and she said I could call them to see if they needed more help. I don’t think she actually expected me to call, being a shy little girl, but I’ve always been very determined when I wanted something, so I mustered up the courage and called. They said yes. Grandma agreed to drive me there in the early morning and pick me up just before lunch. July is raspberry season, and it’s just too hot to pick in the afternoon. I was all set, and I couldn’t wait to start.
I was a hard little worker. And it was hard work. We wore boxes tied around our waists with twine that fit two one-quart containers so we’d have both hands free to pick. Raspberry bushes are incredibly thorny so my arms were scratched up quickly, but I still went every day and picked as much as I could.
I remember one afternoon being up at Grandma Barber’s house and telling her about my new job. She called our house the next day and asked me to come back; she had something for me. When I got there, I was surprised to find a box on her kitchen table, the perfect size to hold two one-quart containers, but this one had ties made from flannel sheets, rather than twine. It was so comfortable, and I felt like a princess at work the next day with my fancy new getup.
People called the raspberry patch all the time to order large quantities to make jam. The owner would tell us how many each order needed, and I felt like a valuable member of the team as I raced back to the rows with the other workers to find the biggest and plumpest raspberries for each customer.
Every day at lunch I would come home with the cash I’d earned, and put it in a jar on my dresser. The fuller the jar got, the more motivated I was to work even harder. You see, I was saving for something very important – my school clothes. Grandma had made me a deal that if I earned my own money, I could choose my own school clothes. But if she was paying for them, then she got to choose them.
I’m positive when she said these words to me when I was nine years old, that she never thought I’d take this to mean I should actually go and get a job.
But I never let her forget those words.
The reason this was so important to me was that I knew Grandma was going to buy me corduroy pants. She loved the way they looked and felt they kept me very warm in the winter.
I hated them.
The swish-swish sound they made as you walked down the hall at school was awful. It sounded like you were wearing snow pants. If I had my way, I would never wear cords.
And Grandma had given me my ticket out.
So off I went, every morning, to my job, in the hopes of never again wearing those dreaded pants. And then I’d come home, have lunch and spend the afternoon in the pool. It was actually a pretty great summer.
I returned to this job every summer for the next three years, eventually riding my bike to get there. And at the end of every summer, I would count the cash in my jar and have enough money to buy my own school clothes. Off we’d go to Ottawa to The Bay. Grandma would make lots of suggestions, but I got the final say on everything I bought.
And I never wore corduroy pants again.
Goals, my wonderful children, life is all about goals. Some come from desires deep within your heart and some are born from a little girl’s hatred of noisy pants.
Love Mom
xoxo
