Strawberry time was the highlight of our lives in White County when I was a child. It was an exciting time, a good time for the grownups, too, finally getting a little money for a whole year’s work.
People started watching their berries as soon as the first bloom came, estimating how many crates they would make that year. Hoping they would make enough to pay for all it had cost to raise them and hopefully a little more. To the children it meant new clothes, pretty dresses and a pair of white shoes for the summer.
We had berry pickers come from everywhere and help us pick our berries. We had a family of black people come down from Missouri for several years. One of them was a preacher, one a teacher and a quartet that sang on the radio. In the evening after work we’d all sit around in our front yard and sing. They were nice people. One of their boys could sit down and sketch anything he wanted to. The last year they came he didn’t come. They said he was in college studying art.
We always had bologna sandwiches in berry time because there was no time to cook. I never smell bologna without thinking of berry time. The Carnival always came to town during that time.
I think a strawberry field is really beautiful. At that time for many years Bald Knob was known as the Strawberry Capital of the World.
The whole town came to life. Money was being spent. People were shopping there. Most people bought everything they needed at Bald Knob. People thought you should support your town. They bought clothes, groceries and farm machinery. Times have changed so much since that time and people have changed the way they think in order to keep up with the times.
While the Carnival was in town everybody went. I was determined to get my fortune told. I was always curious about things that were different to what I’d always known. One day I rode to town with my dad to take a load of berries.
He gave me a 50-cent piece to spend and let me off at the Carnival. The first person I saw was a Gypsy fortune-teller. She wanted to tell my fortune. She said, “Cross my palm with silver.” I thought the silver would do something to her bloodstream or something so she could see into the future, so I did. She grabbed my 50 cents and put it in her pocket and that was the end of my good time and I still didn’t know my future.
I hated to see berry time end but it probably wouldn’t have been near as exciting to me after I grew up and had all the responsibility of raising them and getting them harvested.
It’s still a nice memory.