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today’s my father’s 86th birthday.
born in jamaica, he first came to this country in the early 1940’s as a guest worker. the u.s. was at war, and labor on the homefront was in short supply, so the u.s. government imported many caribbean men to work the farms.
a single man, born and raised in the countryside outside of montego bay in a family of modest means, the guest worker program was about the only way that my father would ever get to see “streets paved with gold” in “the land of milk and honey.”
the men were trucked around the u.s., housed in barracks; their destinations tied to the schedules and climates of produce: the seasons to sow, grow and reap strawberries, cotton, oranges, potatoes, corn, lettuce, and apples from maine, to florida, to california and many states in between.
the experience opened his eyes to the good, the bad and the ugly of 1940’s america: from seeing a man practically lynched, to seeing the vast plains of the midwest and grandeur of the rockies. from seeing the crushing poverty of the rural south to glimpsing the unimaginable wealth of the well-to-do. [ where did the expression "well-to-do" come from? well to do what, exactly? maybe that's a topic for a future post. ]
of course, when the war ended and the gi’s returned home, the guest workers were sent back to their homes. many would come back, as my father did in the early 50’s. as a young man, he was drawn to opportunities and energy of new york city; that’s probably where i get my love of the city.
anyway, what does any of this have to do with apples? well, these apples are from a tree in the front yard of my parents’ house, the house were i grew up, in rural connecticut. the house where, when they bought it in 1968, trees were growing through the kitchen floor and we spent the first night literally camping in the living room. the house in the town where we were the first, and i believe still the only, black family to settle there. the house where they put 5 kids through college, the first college graduates in the family. the house where, more often than not, we were living hand-to-mouth. we kids never knew the razor’s edge on which we were living for many years.
these apples taste pretty sweet to me.
