Life Adventures of Pineapple Sam…
Pineapple Picking Cowboy
Written by Pineapple Sam
Edited by Michele Casteel
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 Pineapple Sam
All Rights Reserved
Dedicated to my fellow listeners and readers without them, my stories are nothing but jumbled letters put together with no meaning. So, if you don’t read or listen, this book is not for you…give it away.
Table of Contents
Summer Pineapples
Abandoned Church
Night Spear Fishing
Pineapple Tourist
Waikiki Farewell
Pineapple in San Francisco
My Introduction
Please read first…
As you probably know, I am not a professional writer. In fact I was a high school dropout but don't put down the book because of that. Besides, you didn’t pay that much for it. I am a Hawaii born and raised Pineapple Picker.
I know, some of you may, say, “Not another local boy gone wild story”. Too bad, get over it. I did. I also realize that many local boys have written great books about their personal experiences during the island days. A great number of those authors were never successfully published and I do not expect any different.
I claim my past and take full responsibility for the effects on how my Hawaiian memories have had an impact in my life. These are my unique stories and experiences that will remain with me forever. They are my Kapu but I shared it like a Kahuna.
Transport yourself to the islands. The pineapple picking is in full swing, there is a distant sound of pineapple trucks and smell of sweet pineapple juice in the air. Familiar smells and sounds of plantation life are welcomed with open arms. A whiff of diesel fuel from the boom trucks, pineapple leaves slapping on the pickers’ chaps, the boom truck strains to stay level above the field and the boom operator’s radio playing the local Hawaiian music station. The kiss of nightfall approaches as the sunset bids goodbye and the flickering of the incandescent boom lights fills the darkness around the pickers with light. These are some of my pineapple picking memories that are tucked away in the corner crevices of my mind. I am a picker, a local grown Pineapple Sam.
Hopefully after this brief introduction I would have kept your attention span long enough to turn the page to the beginning of my story.
Now turn the page and let’s get started.
Chapter 1
Summer Pineapples
It was another tropical island hot summer in the midst of the Pacific Ocean. The year was 1966, an era of “Hippie Flower Child” and “Make Love Not War” slogans. High school students were on summer break and for many it was a time to work for the pineapple or sugar cane plantations.
I was excited and looked forward to getting a job for the summer. There were many job assignments at various locations throughout the island. The majority of the people I knew wanted a job and earn money. The hotels were a great place to work too, but there were fewer job openings and they were difficult to get. I was sixteen and eager to work in either the sugar plantation or pineapple fields. This year I chose to work on the north shore of the island of Kauai where most of the pineapple fields were located.
The assembly place for the workers was at Kapaa pineapple canary, a small town an hour's drive from my home town of Koloa. I had to make the simple decision to live with my sister Anna and her family in the town of Nawilliwilli. From there, it would be thirty minutes from Kapaa but closer to the popular Kalapaki beach.
Throughout the summer many tourists and foreign exchange high school students visited Kalapaki beach. My friends and I frequented the beach everyday to check out the girls in hot bikinis and invite them to hang out with us local boys. Of course we swam a lot, surfed, fished, played volleyball, had barbeques and acted like Beach Bums. The only problem was that we had to work also, but that was okay and we had it all figured out.
The opportunity came for many of us when a 3-11pm shift in the evening was announced and many without hesitation signed up. Now that gave us an ideal chance to hang out at the beach most of the day and work during the evenings. That was perfect for me because the cooler evening shift was better than all day in the hot blazing summer sun. Everyday I packed a gallon of water with my dinner knapsack to stay hydrated. The rest of fluids came from savoring plant ripen juicy and sweet pineapples.
Pineapples have long stiff dark green leaves with pointed thorny edges and pointed tip. I wore a long sleeve shirt, red handkerchief scarf, jeans with canvas chaps, leather boots, gloves, a wide brim straw hat, and clear plastic goggles.
Pineapple picking is considered a very difficult job but with excellent physical workout and money for summer and next school year. The pay was fifty cents per hour for the day shifts and fifty-five cents for the evening shifts. Not bad for the mid nineteen sixties when gas averaged only twenty-five cents a gallon and cigarettes were only twenty cents a pack. We were not old enough to purchase beer and liquor but we had ways to get them cheap also.
Five days a week I left my sister’s house two thirty in the afternoon and drove her 1955 Chevy station wagon to Kapaa Pineapple cannery for my evening shift. Day shift workers looked totally exhausted and were just getting off the passenger trucks when the evening crews arrived at the cannery.
“Hey! Here come's the Owl Pineapple Pickers!” A group of day shift workers shouted and laughing from the transport trucks.
“Yea, and we love it too! Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo!” our guys shouted and hollered back.
Our shift boarded the same rancid dusty trucks and relief drivers drove us out to the fields to take over where the day shift left off. There were already two empty trucks at the boom truck waiting for our crew and anxious to delivery pineapples to the cannery for processing.
There are fifteen pineapple pickers for each 60 foot conveyor boom. The bright yellow boom had a built in black conveyor belt that stretched over several rows of pineapple. The pickers walked through the field rows as they picked pineapples and tossed them onto the conveyor belt. The boom truck moved at a rapid pace so we had to pick the pineapples quickly. From the conveyor belt to the conveyor lift, the pineapples dropped into a bin on the truck. Each truck bin fully loaded held approximately 5,000 ripe or all most ripe pineapples.
It was slow picking the first week because most of the guys in our crew were new and picking only one pineapple at a time and flipping it onto the boom. We needed better techniques, so the old timers were giving pointers and showing us how to pick pineapples with one hand on each row. We had no choice but to learn quickly to keep our boss and boom operator happy.
"Ok brudda, mo than half you guys neva get experience picking pineapple, so two of da old timers gunna show you guys haw to pik da fasta way. So come around tis two guys and watch."
The boom operator was sweating as he stood high on the operator's platform announcing our instruction period.
"Ok brudda's, you guys the experts, show these young men haw to pic pineapples."
The two old timers moved forward, each hand grabbed a pineapple top crown from the front, pushed the pineapples forward and down snapping the pineapples off the plant, lifted up each pineapple toward the boom, then bent their wrists and jerk snapped the pineapples onto the boom. This was done in a smooth swift motion, one pineapple in each hand. They made it looked so easy.
We often challenged other crews nearby on who could load a pineapple truck the fastest. We had our share of wins several times but sometimes we lost by a few minutes. It all depended on the terrain, the crew and the boom truck driver. Nevertheless, it was a good motivator, built camaraderie, and made the picking fun.
“Ok guys, today we're going to speed up da pace. Let's show da day slackers haw we can pic,” barked the big fat boom operator.
After an eight hour shift most of us were exhausted but as teenagers, some were still ready to party! Yes, party time meeting up with new tourist girls we met during the day at the beach. This was awesome and we had the system down path. This would go on the whole summer because the influxes of new visitors were changing nearly every week.
Chapter 2
Abandoned Church
The pineapple picking was in full swing and became an easy routine. Our crew had been working nearly four straight weeks and I began noticing interesting landscapes on the north shore of the island.
One particular place I noticed an abandoned church a short distant from the pineapple fields. I knew we were close to the beach but we were in a valley and could not get a clear view of the shore line. Beyond the silhouette of the church on the hill there had to be a beach on the other side.
One Saturday morning about eight, I met up with three of my fish diving buddies, Mando, Randy, and Wilson. I excitingly shared with them the new place I figured might be another place to camp, spear fish at night, barbeque, and bring our dates to party.