There are fourteen mountain peaks in California called Bear
Mountain—that’s B E A R.
The cotton fields where I worked were in the San Joaquin Valley
at the foot of Bear Mountain, a summit of the Tehachapi Mountains.
Seven miles away to the southeast and just under seven thousand feet
high, its dark, distinctive shape was always on the horizon. There it stood—like a sentinel. Everywhere I went I could look up and it was
always there. From that distance it
never appeared to be green. The green
was there but so dark it became lost in the deep shadows. And yet, on a bright winter day it seemed so
close—like you could almost reach out and touch the snow.
Picking cotton it was easy to forget about spring and the
miles of beautiful cotton fields where the green leaves reminded me of maple
leaves and the colorful pink and purple flowers bathed us all with their pleasant
aroma. Too soon the flowers were gone
leaving behind boles which are similar to large, round rose hips. As summer progressed into autumn the boles
grew, hardened and opened as they dried each revealing five fluffy, seed-filled,
white cotton balls cupped in five curved, sharply pointed wedges.
Picking cotton so close to the omni present mountains I
found myself wondering; with those mountains so near, how could the fields be
so flat? And why were the cotton rows so
long? The strap of the eight foot white
canvas bag lay heavy over my left shoulder, chafing my neck. When the plants were stubby, I crawled on my
knees but if, as occasionally happened, the plants were three feet tall, I
could stand. It was nice to have a
variety of short and tall plants but that seldom happened. Either the knees hurt or the back ached. Each time I stood and arched my back to
relieve the soreness, there Bear Mountain
was—looming in the distance.
Some of the workers were adept at picking with gloves
on. I never developed that ability and
my hands were often pricked and bleeding. It seemed to always be hot. Rivulets of sweat ran down my dust covered
face to sting my eyes and drip off my ear lobes. How I hated picking cotton! Not being squeamish, I paid little attention
to the bugs and actually enjoyed seeing an occasional horned toad, but stayed
on the alert for scorpions and black widow spiders.
When the cotton sack was full
I struggled to throw it over my left shoulder and keep it balanced as I carried
it to the scales. The weight was
recorded under my name. Then, with the
sack back on my shoulder I climbed a ladder and empted three hours of work,
about sixty pounds of fluffy, white cotton, into a trailer. I would stand there on the ladder, glance up at
the horizon, at the mountain, and would think, “Some day, Mountain, I’m going
to leave you and this damn cotton field behind.”
At the end of the day I was paid in cash--$5.00 for every
100 pounds. A good cotton picker could
pick 500 pounds a day. I wasn’t a good
cotton picker and struggled to pick two hundred pounds. But the money I earned from picking cotton
purchased my first badly needed eyeglasses and paid for their repair when they
were broken. The money paid for my dental
work and my clothes and shoes. That
money, along with what I made packing grapes during my seventeenth summer, made
it possible for me, the day after graduation, to climb on a Greyhound bus headed
for Oakland. Full of optimism, I looked back and happily
watched Bear Mountain and the green fields of
cotton fade into the distance.
Rachel Nemitz, May 2009
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