The Times They Are A Changin'

Bob Dylan was right. Things aren't the same anymore. I'm in Linden, California, packing cherries once again. Last year I said I wasn't coming back here. I told everybody that I was getting married, going to school for a year straight, and graduating August 2009. Plans have changed. I'm married, I'm not going to school, I'm not graduating until 2011. And I'm back here with my good friends at Prima Frutta Packing. The joke around here is that you can't stay away from this place, and apparently I fit the part. I'm coming back, though to a different job. This year I brought my old roomate Andrew for a job, and we're woking together on dialing in the consumer pack machines. After two years in the pit, I miss it. I miss the rush, the interaction with the workers, the interaction with cherries. The work we're doing is all just machine testing, optimizing the system. It's not bad, it's just a change.

I'm away from Courtney for an extended period of time the first time in our marriage. At least I know she's with friends, as she knows of me as well. In eighteen days Andrew and I will return to Provo to our wives late at night and go to bed and sleep for a day straight. I can't wait for that day, and we've only worked 52 hours this week--half of what we'll do next week. We haven't even started out here. I miss Courtney more than I miss all those things about a job working the pit. For a number of reasons, I won't be back next year. Now I know what you're thinking, it's early, and yes, I've said that at least once before, probably twice, but I really can't go. I'd rather not go this long again separated from Courtney, and if I'm really plan on graduating in 2011, which is late enough as it is, I have to go to school next summer.

We ran out of early last night so I went over to see the Rendulic family. My friend Dora with whom I graduated high school back in 2003 is in her second year of med school. In two years she'll be a doctor and I'll be a teacher. More change. My friend Chris King is graduating this Saturday. The joke there is that if we would have placed a 50 cent bet in 2003 that Chris King (pictured here third from the left with his roomies at Chico State) would graduate from college before me, Atlee, and Matt people would have told us to buy a Whatyamacallit instead, but alas, we would actually be millionaires today. I gained a new career track, Atlee gained a religion, and, heck, I think Matt might finish next year. Change isn't always bad, it's good. I'll be much happier working in education than in the West Wing. Atlee's plenty happy on his mission and Chris and Matt are happier now than they would have been had they pursued the path they were on after one year at Delta College. I'm happy with where we're all at today. I'm happily married, happily pursuing a career I feel passionate about, and happily writing blogs about Star Trek, concerts, things in the news, and things I learn about in my classes. Even if it's not what I imagined I'd be doing five years ago. There's a battle outside and it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls, for the times they are a-changin'.

Born to Run

In August 2003 I arrived at Campus Plaza. One week passed and I hadn't run, then I was bored one morning and just did it. As I returned from my 30 minute jog and hopped in a cold shower. As I stood in the shower feeling the chilled water pelt my whole body I heard an imagined voice whisper into my ear, "Welcome back to the fold." It had been a long time since I had last run. I ran the two mile in league finals, but never trained for it, and after Sections I was done with everything. It got hot in California and I didn't run, because I had nothing to run for. Standing in the shower that day, feeling my body's tire and satisfaction with my run, I knew who I really was. I was a runner.

So I began a training program called '5k at 5:00', and ran every evening. After I started getting my groove back I started running 5 miles at 5:00. I was back in the swing of things, even when it got colder than my running shoes had ever experienced. A column in the Salt Lake Tribune caught my attention when the columnist was training for a marathon and would report a weekly training log. I saw his first week's schedule and decided I could start out like that, and from that time on my marathon training began.

I registered for the Santa Cruz Marathon to be held on June 5th and trained well. School ended and I went home. After being home for two days I ran a scheduled 30 miler on a hot late April day in central California. Running had just become something that I did. Distance did not phase me--especially shorter distances. Two days later I was offered a job at Prima Frutta Packing. I would be working seven days a week, 16 hour days when they started picking Bings locally for the last few weeks. The projected final day of the season was June 5th. I knew that I would not have time to run, and therefore would not be ready for my race. But I also knew that I needed this money to pay for a greater part of my mission and also have some for tuition when I got home. So I took the job and laid my marathon aspirations to rest.

I don't remember running the rest of my time at home preceding my mission. I didn't get to run that much on my mission. When I came home to Idaho I ran. It was cold and windy, but I stuck it out. In Provo I tried, but failed miserably to keep up a consistant running schedule. Until today.

Today I ran five miles , ending a 15 mile week. I decided to take a jogging class this semester. The class requires that I run 140 miles throughout the semester. I needed a running schedule, so I looked online and found a good half-marathon schedule. I decided a couple of years ago that training for the marathon may not have made my body very happy with me at times, and that I didn't really want to do that. Besides, I ran 26.2 miles on my own a couple of times, and there's nothing that exciting about it. Running a half marathon is just as legit a race to train for. So I called up Scott E and asked if he was in, too. He's as fast as (if not faster than) I was when I was his age, and he's in. So late in the summer we'll face off.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm intimidated by his speed. Especially when I started my easy runs coming in with 8-minute miles. But I'm not pushing it at all-I don't want to risk injury. Once I'm accustomed to running greater distances and for longer periods of time (like my 40-minute job today) then I'll switch training schedules to work on my speed. Will I be as fast as Scott? Well, probably not, seeing that he still has track training in his sights. But that'll be shorter distance. When he's running two mile races, I'll be running twelve mile LSD (long slow distance) on Saturdays. Come May I'll have the endurance and he'll have the speed. Possibly by August we'll be on the same track.

This is The End

Yesterday was the gap between picking in the South and the North (aka here), and today the Bings will begin to roll in. Yesterday we nearly ran out of fruit, but that won't happen again. It'll just keep on coming in untill one day it stops. And the next day we'll finish. But I don't have to worry about that for another three weeks.

Yes, this is the end. Not even close to the end of cherry season, but the end of life as I know it. I'll be in the shed for 17 hours a day. It will pass, though; all cherry seasons end.

Why Am I Back Here?

Every day it seems the expected ending date for cherry season backs up. The 10th. The 15th. The 21st. The 26th. July 1st. I put in 76 hours last week and I've done 41 in the past three days. I look at what I'm doing around the packing shed and wonder to myself why I ever came back. The answer is found in the eyes of the workers.


Last year I gained many friendships with the laborers in the packing shed. All of them are hispanic. Talking to a floor lady, I asked, "How many of these people have papers?" "None of them!" was the answer. I talk to Jaime the mechanics about the struggles of working awful hours and not having time to learn english. I talk to Asucena and Yajira about the expensive price of living and needing to work so much to pay their bills. I talk to Claudia, who tells me how great a job this is compared to McDonalds. It doesn't require education or experience or even that you speak english, you get lots of hours, and you get a couple of months off between cherry and apple seasons.


But I don't talk to them a lot about that. I mostly talk to them about their lives, what they do and what they want to do. Some people would like to do more, but some people are happy there. A lot of them have children that go to school and speak English and are making progress. They love their families. Most of them watch soccer, all of them listen to music and dance and have a good time. They're fun. And they're interested in me, too. Wonderful, simple, humble people. I came to love them last year, and they're the reason I came back.


The full-time production managers and marketing guys are different. When they talk it's always some vulgar, ill-mannered crazy story. They talk about hunting, fishing, drinking, womanizing, criticizing, etc. I'd rather not be there for that. My friends are the Mexicans.


They're why I came back. They make me smile. They're an inspiration to me. They ask me about Courtney and my wedding and how many kids we want to have and what I'm going to do after I graduate. I love speaking Spanish with them, too. They help me learn more, too, and always want to know how I learned it so well and want me to help them learn english. Now the white guys aren't all horrible people- even the worst of them is a good person, but there's a concern for the individual that isn't there with them. The language barrier promotes the Marxist idea that laborers are just an extension of the machine to which they are assigned. People are worth more than that.