‘Lil FoodSpook the Gardener
I am a grandfather and a life long gardener. In 1956 I turned eight years old. My father declared it was time for me to go to work. My family had moved from San Francisco to Oakland in 1950 and then to Richmond in 1951. My parents had both worked very hard and long hours in the Bay Area shipyards during WWII and were able to buy their first home that year. My mother became a house mom, except during the summer when she worked in the canneries. My father worked for the Navy as a “chipper”. His job was to go down into the bowels of gigantic warships and into their fuel and oil tanks and stand on ladders with a heavy, hand held pnuematic tool and chip sometimes up to seven inches of whatever crud had coagulated on the tanks walls during the ship’s last voyage. In summer, the heat in those tanks could kill a man. In winter the gray and wet Bay Area climate would wreck havoc on a man’s joints. My father’s arthritic knuckles looked like tree roots.
My father was also a Preacher on Sundays and a butcher on weeknights. He also did gardening work for white people living in the Richmond and Berkeley Hills. My Father declared it was time for me to start work when I was eight years old. He and I would do seven or eight yards on a Saturday. We started with my Dad shaking me in my bed at 5:30 in the morning. For years every Saturday morning I awakened to the words, “boy, let’s go”. By the time I got downstairs, my Dad had a pot of boiling water that he had thrown in about 4 tablespoons of Hills Bros. ground coffee. A pot of grits was bubbling and a dozen pieces of bacon sizzling on the stove. By 6:00 AM we were on the road. I will never forget the freshness of the air just at dawn. The smell of fresh cut grass with a slight layer of nocturnal dew is etched into my psyche. I worked very hard. In fact my Dad would leave me to do a mansion while he went to the next. He would come back and pick me up and we would repeat the routine. By 6:00 that evening we would have done 7 to 8 estates. I truly became a gardener at a very young age and my love for nature and plants has never left me. I worked with my father until I was in my late teens.
Of course I couldn’t know at that time that his work ethic for me was illegal. What would a young Black family from the south know about child labor laws? My Dad was forced to stop school after the third grade to work on the family farm. He had a inferiority complex the whole rest of his life. He treated me in the the 1950′s the same way his father treated him in the 1920′s. My young life was no picnic. Out of this rough existence of a childhood I became a lifelong devotee of the positive energy of ALL living things. Gardening and plants were my sanctuary and my private world. I absolutely love plants and gardening. I have been involved in growing, pruning and landscaping for over 50 years.
This blog is about the simpler things in our life that should be some important things also. Years ago people in little towns all over the country had gardens. They actually grew their own fruits and vegetables. A dairy farm would deliver milk, eggs, cheese, and butter. Neighbors exchanged apricots for plums or squash for tomatoes. My mother was capable on canning anything, and she did. We did not run to the supermarket for each and every food we needed. There where NO supermarkets in the early 1950′s. The were corner markets, then there where bigger corner markets. These stores were family owned. Supermarkets began in the late-1950′s early 1960′s. Stores became corporate owned. Neighbors began to rely less upon each other and more so upon big markets opening on the outskirts of town. The new U.S. Highway system was being built at that time a suburbs were just being created. These markets were incredibly convenient and remarkably efficient. My parents didn’t know what a loss leader was in these stores. They just knew there was one big store where they could go to and find everything they needed. I remember chicken feet cost .29 cents a pound. By the way a loss leader is a product a store advertises to sell for less than their cost in order to get customers into the store and by products that have a bigger markup.
That is how our food production has been hijacked. We no longer grow our own foods. Not to disrespect our farmers and people that are growing their own fruits and vegetables, they are under assault by big business and your own government. We now have products on the grocery shelves that contain ingredients that will shorten your life. That convenient supermarket now dictates how long your lifespan will be. WE gave them that power. Most of you reading this blog are young adults. The factors concerning unhealthy foods and your consumption were established fifty years ago. Now, today we have no control over type II diabetes, heart attacks and strokes. In fact, obesity is now killing more people that cigarettes.
FoodSpook says if you can, start your own garden. At least be aware that the future of your health and welfare has been abducted. Your government has other priorities like wars and stealing other country’s seeds and indemnifying Wall Street thieves. We did not have over 50% of Americans obese in the 1950′s. We did not have a pandemic of diabetes. We did not have 400,000 people dying from complications due to obesity. Stop trusting the FDA. It is a become a political honeypot for presidential appointments. It is not an effective organization. Overall. Americans are becoming more unhealthy each year. Think about how you can become your own gardener. Look at labels! Even though they lie and try to confuse you, for example (dehydrated cane juice), you would be rudely surprised at how gullible we have become. The food industry in America thinks we are stupid. We are are not doing enough to disprove their opinion. We still buy their products with the utmost trust and very little research. What we stop buying, these companies will STOP selling.
From my early gardening days, I trust the products that I coxed and nutured from the ground and then ate. I now look for true organically grown fruits and vegetables. I look for fair trade coffee and bananas from our Southern Hemisphere. Our dollars help support the growers of these foods that sustain life, not take life. You can positively effect the destiny of your health and in turn, create a positive ripple for other deserving people that are providing healthy foods for our sustainment.
FoodSpook
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