Everything comes to and end, August, 1975: Osoyoos, BC

We spent a couple more days in the picking routine. Every day much of the same, chilly mornings, clear hot days, ending with sated bodies relaxing around campfires in the evening. Not much remarkable occurred until Sunday. There was no work, so many of us spent most of the day in town at a park bordering Lake Osoyoos. It seemed like many folks came down from the hills to join in the day of rest. While traditional people gathered in church halls, our tribe held its meeting out of doors. Theirs seemed about an hour, ours lasted all day. Folks who were on the road, those who escaped individually or communally into the hills and those like us who sought temporary labor sang, danced, and shared stories, food, and mind altering substances. The weather was similar to the week days spent out in the full sun, but today we enjoyed shade from magnificent trees overlooking lakeshore. In the afternoon, we were joined by many of those who spent their morning in denominational churches.
Sometime in the afternoon, a rumor began circulating that we would no longer be paid by the hour but changed to piece work. This news was disconcerting, we were not getting wealthy as it was and now we feared our work style would not be sustainable. There was a meeting called in management’s office late in the afternoon. Piecemeal we reassembled back at our living quarters. Mood was turning depressing as we gathered our grumbling and prepared for a meeting we feared would not turn out well. Some of the veterans assured us these switches were inevitable as the season progressed. They seemed willing to hang in there.
It was just before our evening meal on our day of rest when the meeting commenced.
It was explained that now that the bulk of harvesting had been conducted the tomato vines were sparse and it was not feasible to continue paying by the hour for an increasingly meager yield. The significance being that those picking would not be able to match their slight hourly wage as the crop was dwindling. It made slight sense but felt unfair. Many of us determined we would not stay even as gleaners. I was losing my taste for tomatoes and my mouth and many others produced their own crops of ulcers as a result of a heavy acidic diet. It was time to move on. Management agreed to pay immediately any wages due to those who chose to leave and would allow us to stay on their property one more night.
As we marched out of the office someone broke out a song and we left singing in unison the words from Wooden Ships, “Silver people on the shore line, let us be…. We are leaving-- you don’t need us.” Our last evening was more lively as it followed a day of rest and was filled with the energy of impending separations. That only changed the tunes, tone and volume of our live radio. In the morning Lance, Alison and I headed back to Slocan with slightly more money.

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